


The Continuing Adventures of Little Sparkle (Et al.)

by Domoz



Series: Postscripts [2]
Category: Critical Hit (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Season 6 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:22:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26276350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domoz/pseuds/Domoz
Summary: Or: The Continuing Adventures of Little Sparkle, Aluxe, Fangs-For-Foes, and an unlimited number of time travelers.
Relationships: Little Sparkle/Aluxe
Series: Postscripts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899883
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by styyxx!!

Fangs-for-Foes stalked up and down the deck of the Devil-Tzar between the rows of crewmen on board. Every now and then she would pull her arm up and bring down the fancy new bronze sword she was carrying with a satisfying _swoosh_ as it cut through the air.

Little Sparkle watched the movements from a spot on the upper decks. She had warned Fangs that she might have been scaring the crew, and it looked like she was, but Fangs didn’t listen and Sparkle hadn’t really expected her to. They were preparing to set sail - off towards Ulridan’s last seen location, and their crew was loading up supplies and learning just how this formerly Asmodean ship worked. They were also learning about the Gnoll with whom they’d be sharing a ship for the foreseeable future.

Sparkle scampered down the railings as she spotted Aluxe making his way up the gangplank. Preparations were almost complete and it looked like he had walked up this time ready to leave at any moment. He raised his hand in a small wave as she dropped down next to him.

“How’s the magic practice going? No horrible brain melting backlash, I hope?”

She shook her head. Truth be told the sending ritual had been giving her no end of trouble, her previous in-depth experience with magic only really extended to how to _disable_ a spell; as it turned out figuring out the complex series of steps to _cast_ one was different entirely. But as far as she could tell the only headaches she had gotten from the attempts were from trying to memorize unfamiliar sigils and runes, not magical feedback. 

“I haven’t caused an explosion yet so we’ll just call it forward progress.”

Aluxe clapped her on the back, face feathers ruffling up in amusement.

“Maybe by the time we find Ulridan you’ll be slinging spells like a wizard, eh?”

He chuckled but it was cut off by a thump and a cackle from across the deck; Sparkle also turned her head to see that it looked like Fangs had come a little too close to cutting off part of a crewman. Aluxe walked away to deal with that, his expression not even shifting. He had dealt with this one too many times to let it bother him. If he was to be believed, Fangs was getting better about things like this, but that mostly left Sparkle concerned about what she had been like _before_.

Sparkle just shook her head and made her way back below decks. Some of the sailors, on their way up from depositing whatever cargo they had brought aboard, would awkwardly pause, giving a salute and a “Miss Lady Sparkle”. Some did so because Aluxe was paying them and they saw her as someone in command. Others probably did it because the story of how things had gone in the lighthouse was becoming _complicated_ . A not insignificant number of people thought that she was responsible for killing Asmodeus, if not solely then at least by landing the killing blow. The attention had been amusing at first but it had quickly started to wear on her and she could only explain so many times that _well, no, actually Asmodeus gave away his soul to my friend in a game, making an entirely new god that looks sort of like him_ so many times.

Sparkle slipped into her cabin and onto her bed, pulling the spell book she had been trying to parse into her lap for another round. Somewhere deep beneath her, the ship’s engine rumbled to life- it seemed they were about to leave any moment now. Perhaps she would be able to relax a little more while they sailed- there was no telling how long the trip would take, after all.

* * *

Indeed, it looked like it would be a few weeks at a minimum. The solenoid could only take them in straight lines to and from Waypoint - from there it was still quite a journey; already an island they should have passed by in a few days wasn’t spotted until the end of the week. That was one of the many problems with time breaking down - you could never know whose favor the flow would go in.

Little Sparkle kept herself busy; if she wasn’t practicing the ritual, she was down in the engine room trying to piece together the basics of how the ship’s engine and solenoid worked, or sparring on deck with Aluxe or Fangs. When the two would go up against each other she would sit and watch that too - after they had each had a turn with the Bronze Scimitar it had been summarily banned from use in friendly sparring. Now the two of them each held a long staff, Fangs’ with a wooden slab affixed to the end to mimic an axe. Sparkle wasn’t sure she trusted Fangs not to hurt anyone even _with_ that weapon, but she and Aluxe seemed pretty well in sync with each other, dodging and weaving between each other’s blows.

So, of course, Sparkle took the opportunity to ask them things she had been wondering, in the hopes that the distraction would lead to a little more honesty in their answers. 

“So uh, are you guys actually still feeling good about Grummsh, considering everything that’s happened?”

Aluxe blinked and looked over to her for just a moment before his attention was snapped back to Fangs as she used the opening to swing at him.

“Don’t care,” grunted Fangs.

“Yeah, I don’t either,” Aluxe was breathless, answering her at the same time he jabbed his staff forwards to try and knock the Fangs off-balance, “As long as the demons are easy to manipulate I’ll stick with it, I guess.”

“But Fangs, I thought you were born and raised under him?”

Fangs caught the swing with her own staff and pushed Aluxe off of her, the two _clacking_ as they hit. She was less distracted than Aluxe, the only sign she had heard was the flick of an ear in Sparkle’s direction, but he apparently couldn’t resist answering for her.

“Oh she was, but I think I’ve changed her mind.”

The gnoll snorted and brought down her weapon in an overhead swing with enough force that Little Sparkle was surprised the wood didn’t splinter. Aluxe danced away from the blow, putting some distance between them.

“Grummsh doesn’t care what we do, so we do whatever we want.”

Fangs charged forwards, swinging her mock-axe first to the side, and then at the last moment upwards. Aluxe was just distracted enough that Fangs-for-Foes landed a solid blow on his beak. He went stumbling backwards, hands up to show that he was yielding. It probably wasn’t hard enough to cause any real damage, but forceful enough that a solid sounding _thunk_ rang out across the deck and Little Sparkle winced in sympathy.

Rather than help him up, Fangs-for-Foes sat down with the two of them instead, grunting in satisfaction.

Her window for distracted honesty was gone, but Sparkle was still curious even for the half-truths she knew she would get.

“How did you end up tangled with Gruumsh anyways?”

Aluxe was still rubbing his beak in pain, but still managed to look a little smug, as usual.

“Oh, it’s nothing special. Guild leaves you with no option but to join them. Guild sends you through an experimental portal to the astral sea. You wind up meeting some demons and, well. You know the rest.”

Sparkle did not know the rest, the tantalizing question of if Aluxe was still loyal to his guild - if he was _ever_ loyal to his guild still hung in the air. But before she could decide if she would dare, Fangs snorted again.

“He was a real shrimp the first time I met him. Didn’t even know the difference between a quasit and a dretch!”

“Hey, hey. I managed to pull it together didn’t I?”

Fangs just _cackled_ in that loud uncomfortable hyena way of hers that made it clear that no, she did not think he had managed to do that. Aluxe clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Well whatever you think, you’ve been following me this long.”

“Yeah, to see the trouble you get into.” 

“If that’s what you’re here for you’d better stick around -”

They bounced off of each other in conversation in much the same way they did in combat - though maybe Aluxe had the upper hand this time. And though they danced around it, underneath the arguing was a warmth that made Sparkle smile. They trusted each other, at least, even if she wasn’t sure if she would yet.

* * *

Little Sparkle finished drawing the final line of the ritual circle with a flourish. The chalk circle was overly large and complicated, the hundreds of separate specific runes taking up over half of the floor space of her cabin. But it was done, and she was fairly certain it was done perfectly. This version had little room for error in construction, but in exchange meant that Sparkle didn’t have to be terribly exact in how she manipulated the magic itself. She lit the four candles that she had placed at four points in the circle, careful not to smudge any of her hard work as she moved, and sat down cross-legged at the far side. All that was left was the spell itself - the first step was to clear her mind.

Easier said than done, it seemed like thoughts wanted to wander everywhere _but_ the ritual circle for the moment. Who to do the sending _to?_ Aluxe and Fangs were so nearby that it would guarantee success but she also felt a twinge of hesitation in letting them know that it had taken her even this long to cast the thing.

Her eyes settled on the scroll case she had set against the far wall- the scroll of far sending Orem had tossed her before they had parted ways. If she wanted to talk to her dad _right now_ she could, but the feeling that she should save something like that scroll for an emergency was mixed with the fact that, in honesty, she still had no idea what to say to her father. She had sort of been using the time spent learning the spell to decide what that would be and she still hadn’t come up with anything.

So, the normal, plain, sending ritual it was. Which had to have a recipient. Again she looked at the scroll case. Orem would never admit to it, but Sparkle suspected that one of the reasons he had given it to her was so that she would keep in contact with him. She didn’t know if he was still on the astral sea, but if he was, well he was as good a test subject as any.

She looked back at the circle and this time with a clear goal in mind it was a little bit easier to focus. All that was left was the spell itself - the chanting and the hand movements, referenced now and then from a quick side glance at the open spellbook by her side. She made one last pass with her hand over the circle and then, to her surprise, it _clicked_ , she could feel the extra channel open in her head, waiting to be filled with something.

“Uh.” She hadn’t thought about what she was going to say to _him_ , either, “Hi Orem. It’s Little Sparkle. I think I just cast sending? Let me know if you get this. Hope you’re doing well.”

She let out a breath and could feel that channel close as the spell finished. Response or no, that did seem what it was _supposed_ to feel like, so she would call it a success. If she really wanted to confirm, she could always-

_Oh! Hello Sparkle. Message received, I’m doing all right, I hope you are as well._

She couldn’t help but laugh to herself at just how pleased he sounded to get the message. And with confirmation that it had worked, came the next step: practice. This version of the ritual was far too cumbersome to use for longer than she had to, and the ritual itself was just a low powered version of the one she actually needed to learn. But it was certainly a start.

It was also enough success that Sparkle felt she deserved a break. She reached over to shut the spellbook and took some time to stretch as she stood up. A walk around the ship would be nice - most of the crewmembers had gotten used to seeing her by now that she didn’t have to deal with awkward salutes every few minutes. Though by now she had grown accustomed to sneaking around them, half for the fun of it and half out of the habit of wanting to avoid attention. So it was without even really realizing that she snuck up to the decks and behind Aluxe, who was at the prow watching the sky darken as evening came to the astral sea.

“Hey Aluxe.” She leaned on the railing next to him and looked over. Her tone was conversational, and not any louder than anything else on deck but Aluxe _squawked,_ feathers ruffling and hand flying out to his side to cast some sort of spell before his eyes locked on Little Sparkle and he froze. As soon as he realized what had happened he wilted - hand falling, feathers smoothing back down and shoulders slouching and he exhaled.

“Gods alive, I always forget how quiet you are.”

Aluxe reached up his hand and smoothed out his robe as though that would hide his embarrassment. 

“That's kind of the idea,” Sparkle looked out over the horizon, mimicking the stance Aluxe had been in when she had arrived.

Aluxe exhaled a long breath and then chuckled, the moment of weakness brushed away. He moved back to his spot too, only his gaze was no longer fixed on the astral sea, but on Little Sparkle. Perhaps to make sure she didn’t do anything too sneaky, or perhaps simply because he intended to make conversation.

“I guess that _is_ why we keep you around.”

He kept his eyes fixed on Sparkle until it became too uncomfortable to ignore and she turned her head back to look at him. She only barely managed to stop herself from running a hand through her face-feathers in self-consciousness.

“...Is there a problem?”

“No. I was just wondering something.” Aluxe blinked and then looked away as if he had only just realized how intense he was being. “Your real name isn’t Little Sparkle.”

Sparkle felt a sinking feeling, unsure of where this was going.

“It’s not.”

Aluxe nodded. “Right. So I’ve been thinking. There’s no guilds out here. Why hang on to the code name?”

Truth be told, Sparkle had thought about it herself ever since she had gotten to the astral sea. It was hard to answer, with the question so directly asked, and the fact that it was Aluxe doing the asking put her a little on edge. She sighed.

“Mostly just inertia, I guess. No one has tried to call me anything but Little Sparkle in a long time.”

“Really? I would have guessed your friends would have dropped it _sometimes_.”

She shrugged. They had learned her name but she couldn’t recall any of them once trying to use it, which had suited her perfectly fine. Whether Aluxe was satisfied with her non-answer or not, he didn’t seem to have anything more to say, giving Sparkle one last sidelong look before leaning back against the railing, facing not the astral sea, but the deck of the ship. It was dark enough now that the night shift had made their way up onto the deck, quietly doing their jobs and giving them a wide berth.

The two of them remained next to each other and a quiet fell over them. Sparkle couldn’t help her thoughts from wandering. The name thing truly didn’t bother her, what did was how things had ended up with some of those friends. Ket was probably not even Ket anymore, and truth be told she was hoping to get some idea of where he had gone. And then there was poor, poor Randus... 

She inadvertently sighed thinking of what had happened to him and Aluxe’s eyes snapped over to her. He looked like he wanted to ask more questions but he hesitated, maybe figuring that he had already pushed too far.

“I’m just wondering if we’re going to find more gods with Ulridan,” Sparkle offered. That Ket might be one of them was not what he needed to know, “There were five eggs so it wouldn’t surprise me if he handed most of them out.”

“Five... Eggs?”

Aluxe stared at her as though a tentacle had sprouted out of her head and it occurred to Sparkle that he and Fangs were operating on far less information about Ulridan than she was. This, at least, was a question she didn’t mind answering.

“Yeah, they’re, uh… I actually wasn’t really clear on this but they’re some kind of void thing. When you hold one it just makes your mind go blank and sets you walking in a direction. I don’t know where.”

He didn’t need to know that Asmodeus had taken the eggs in question from her and her friends in the first place, though he would probably eventually puzzle it out on his own. 

He continued to stare for a long moment in utter confusion.

“We probably are going to want to have a way to knock it out of his hands,” she suggested. Aluxe nodded, eyes still wide.

“I’ll see about getting a harpoon gun or something. A bunch of somethings, I guess.”

* * *

As the Devil-Tzar came in sight of the island the evidence of Ulridan’s visit became strikingly and immediately clear. The village on this island might be described as quaint - each house was painted a different bright, if faded, color. Everything was built close together, things were vertical not because of any one particularly tall building but because over time the lack of space had caused each house and garden to be built progressively on top of the others that came before. Nice enough; unfortunately, a full third of the island had fully collapsed into itself, and the interconnectedness of the buildings meant that the wreckage was slowly starting to pull the rest down with it.

They had caught a view of the destruction from the ship, but now that Sparkle, Fangs, and Aluxe had debarked and walked to the middle of it, the details made it worse. The actual death toll from Uldrian walking through the island probably hadn’t actually been that high, so there were a hundred, maybe more, people who had set up a makeshift shanty-town in the wreckage. The sight was all too familiar and Sparkle had to tell herself that it was okay, for once she actually _had_ managed to do something to the one who had done this. _Well, sort of._

Aluxe had pulled out a series of charts and had them laid out over the rocks of what probably used to be the foundation of somebody’s home, the edges weighed down with bits of bricks. One hand was on his forehead, the other was tracing line after line over the island in various directions. It wasn’t exactly obvious from the destruction where Ulridan had walked, and with the egg as a factor, there was no guarantee he was walking towards any particular island or landmark. 

Finally giving up, Aluxe leaned over the charts with his head in his hands.

“I think we need a little more information. Who wants to start asking people where he walked out of the sea?”

Little Sparkle had been looking over the scene from her seat on the top of a mostly intact wall, but as he asked the question she hopped down to the ground. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Fangs-for-Foes looked up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the ground, near Aluxe’s feet. 

“You want me to go with you?”

She had been bored out of her mind as soon as they had arrived - this place didn’t seem very lively at the best of times and she had been asked not to cause any trouble no fewer than three times already. It seemed that gnolls weren’t exactly common around here, so she was already attracting a fair amount of attention just by sitting there.

“Sorry Fangs, but you’d better not.”

Sparkle grimaced, and Fangs rolled her eyes and splayed out even further on the ground with a huff.

“Whatever. Just do it fast or I might get bored and start getting information my own way.”

Sparkle nodded and raced off, not willing to put that threat to the test.

It wasn’t that people weren’t willing to talk, on the contrary as soon as she showed interest the displaced people wanted nothing more than to tell the story of how one day, out of nowhere, an enormous man walked out of the ocean and into their homes. Their cries for help and weapons both bounced off of him and in only a few steps and a few minutes he had crossed the island and walked back into the astral sea where he had come from. The trouble was that the specific details of the stories varied wildly. Ulridan’s hair would be grey, or red, or black, and he would be anywhere between two and ten stories tall. She had narrowed the stretch of beach he had walked out of to the entire two hundred yards of destroyed houses.

Hoping for better luck from those by the water, she walked down to the pebbly beach past the remains of what used to be seaside houses. Here and there people were starting to light campfires, but as Sparkle looked for one to join a different movement caught her eye. Down the beach there was a house that had been knocked over and rebuilt into a hut- in place of a door was a long scrap of red fabric, which was what drew her attention as it was pushed aside. 

A man stepped out - he was human, kind of short, with messy dark brown hair. Perhaps most strikingly, one of his arms had an enormous gauntlet on it that dwarfed the rest of him. In fact, that was what looked most familiar, almost as if-

“Randus?” 

She couldn’t contain her excitement. He looked around, confused to see who had called his name and realized it was Little Sparkle about the time she pulled him into a hug. 

He was different- there didn’t seem to be as much metal in him, and the armor was totally new, but it _was_ Randus, proven as much as anything by the way he greeted her.

“Oh, heh. Uh, hey, Sparkle.”

She squeezed him tightly one more time before letting go.

“Oh, Randus it’s good to see you. I wasn’t expecting to see you again. And definitely not here!”

He laughed nervously, human hand moving to tug at his collar.

“Yeah I uh. Get around.”

As the second realization hit Sparkle the excitement started to fizzle.

“I guess you haven’t fixed your time issue yet, huh?”

Randus shook his head, and then stopped, looking contemplative.

“...Have you already met a Randus who was unstuck?”

Sparkle nodded, and now Randus was looking as concentrated as Aluxe had been with the charts. He was mumbling to himself too, eyes unfocused like he was making some calculations in his head.

“That good, that's good. Maybe it means the timelines are getting a little less divergent.”

“...Does that mean you can stabilize? Will that help?” 

Randus started when she spoke, remembering that she was still there.

“Uh.. maybe. What is the situation here anyways?”

“Well, we stopped Asmodeus. Or he-” she sighed, “Asmodeus lost his soul to Ket and now neither of them exist anymore but something else does. And Ulridan has the void egg and we’re trying to figure out where he’s going with it.”

That was about as concise of an explanation as she could give. And thankfully, Randus being Randus nodded and took it all in stride.

“I can help, while I’m here. If you want.”

“Of course.”

Sparkle had already taken his arm and started pulling him back to where Aluxe and Fangs waited.

Aluxe still stood at the charts but Fangs was nowhere to be found.

“Uh oh.” Sparkle couldn’t help herself, and Aluxe looked up, and then from Sparkle to Randus and back in confusion.

“...Fangs is back on the ship. Hopefully. You… You’re Randus, right?”

He was only off balance for a moment before he walked towards them, one hand outstretched to shake Randus’. Aluxe had met Randus before, and as far as Sparkle knew he didn’t know about what had happened to him. As far as he was concerned this was just… Randus.

“He’s going to help us. If that’s alright of course.”

“...Sure. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Does he want to start by helping me figure out this path?”

They both looked at Randus, who nodded and was led over to the charts in question. He stared at them for a long minute.

“Hm. The only trajectory that really makes sense…” he took the compass Aluxe had discarded to the side and drew a line, “...Assuming he’s walking in a straight line. It’s the only way the orbit of the Armory and this one really match up and leave this kind of damage.”

His voice got quieter as he started mumbling about specific degrees and angles. Aluxe blanched.

“But that leads us right out into the far realms! There’s nothing out there!”

Sparkle was staring at the map too, mind ablaze with possibilities.

“Nothing that’s been charted. Look, I think we should try it. It’s not like we can’t just go back to Waypoint if it turns out to be nothing.”

Aluxe threw up his hands.

“Fine. Sure. I guess I’m gonna go get more supplies. And a _lot_ more weapons. Welcome aboard Randus.”

Randus barely acknowledged him, his attention still focused on the charts. Aluxe rolled up the less relevant ones and stowed them away before backing away. It was unclear if he was frustrated or just confused.

“Bring those with you when he’s done, right?”

“Right.”

He was quickly out of sight behind all of the ruins, and it wasn’t much longer after that before Randus nodded and rolled up the remaining charts. Little Sparkle started leading him back to the ship, doing her best to explain as much as she could think of - the Devil-Tzar, the solenoid on it, the sending ritual, and even her own studies into it. 

She finished with, “I’m glad you’re here, but it feels like such a coincidence that you wound up finding me again.”

Randus smiled.

“You know, I wonder if it is.”


	2. Chapter 2

So, they sailed into the far realms. Supposedly the land of unspeakable and unknowable things, if you went far enough. Out here, though, it just looked like the rest of the astral sea.

Fangs had taken to Randus about as well as she took to everything, which was to say mostly with indifference since she wasn’t allowed to fight or eat him. In fact, one night at dinner Sparkle sat down at a table across from Fangs only to witness her eat everything on her plate - bones, fruit peels and all. Fangs noticed her staring and glowered back at her.

“What?”

“Nothing! I just didn’t think you’d be that hungry.”

One of Fang’s ears flicked; the emotion the movement was meant to express was unclear for the moment.

“I’m always hungry. Gnoll thing.”

“Oh, that sounds horrible”

“Yeah.” Fangs agreed. “You get used to it I guess.”

Sparkle found herself struggling for what to say next. As far as she had been able to tell, she didn’t have very much in common with the gnoll, who had locked eyes with her and was reaching across the table to take some of the food she had left on her plate. There was only really one thing that came to mind.

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Fangs raised an eyebrow but she didn’t say no, so Sparkle went on. “How did you and Aluxe meet?”

Fangs snorted and cackled, just a little.

“Oh, he started a riot is how. Like I’ve said before he was this little shrimp, right? Shows up in our camp looking beat to hell, babbling about how he’s gotta get out of here and how we should all come with him. Got really lucky no one ate him on the spot but he was able to fight decent enough. So we take him in, only he doesn’t stop talking about ‘material plane’ this and ‘exploring the astral sea’ that. Wasn’t as convincing at the time as he is now but I guess he got the idea in my head because the next time he showed up I was ready to up and leave with him.”

“Huh. That’s… surprisingly nice.”

“What, I can’t be nice?” Fangs accused her while simultaneiously snatching a slice of orange off of Sparkle’s plate. Sparkle just slid the rest of her food on top of Fang’s own plate as she stood up to leave. No complaint from the gnoll as she started scarfing down that as well.

Up on deck, Sparkle found Randus and Aluxe fiddling with some strange machine on a tripod. Most of the face was made up by a single indicator that was pointing straight ahead and vibrating a little alarmingly. 

“Okay boys. What is this?”

Randus didn’t even look up as she spoke, but Aluxe straightened up from whatever screw he was tightening.

“It’s a machine that points towards Ulridan. In theory. I think right now it’s just a compass that points to the nearest god. Who I’m hoping is him.”

“So we’re going in the right direction?”

“Yep. Or the very, very wrong direction. I just hope there aren’t any surprise gods out here.”

Randus was still watching the machine and reached out to adjust some knobs. Nothing appeared to change, but he nodded, satisfied.

“We should be able to tell we’re getting close because time will start to get more stable,” he mumbled, “So even if he’s under the astral sea we  _ should _ be able to tell when we’re on top of him.”

“Alright!” Aluxe piped up, slapping Randus on the shoulder, “So keep a watch on it and let me know if you spot Ulridan. Or a horrible monster.” 

He walked away, probably to go sit at the same table downstairs Sparkle had been a few minutes ago. She looked up at Randus, but his expression was pensive, his focus seemed to be elsewhere.

“I wonder if stabilizing time would help with my situation,” Randus said softly, to no one in particular, “I wish I could communicate with myself.”

“If you want, you could leave a message with me to pass on if I see you again.”

Randus started, probably only just noticing that Sparkle was there. She went on.

“Randus, if you think it will help, I’ll do whatever it takes to get time fixed again.”

Randus smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“That's very kind of you, but don’t go making big plans yet. I… Might leave some notes. We’ll see.”

* * *

This time, sending practice was a little more manageable - a smaller circle, drawn over several sheets of paper and sticks of incense in the place of candles. Little Sparkle stood over the array with a hand outstretched, a strange tingling that was both freezing and burning hot at once traveled up her arm and into her neck. This was magic, she was realizing, and it just sort of felt like  _ power _ .

She snapped her wrist around and the smoke from the incense followed, bending in a weird fractal ring that billowed up into a cyclone before seeming to disappear into her fingers. The burning sensation increased in intensity and then dissipated up her shoulder and into her throat. She felt that channel open again and dropped her hand.

“Hey again, Orem.” She was surprised at how much harder it was to speak with magic buzzing around in her throat and had to clear it. Did that count as a word? She wasn’t sure. “Still practicing. We found Randus again. Don’t know if he’s ours or not but he’s helping out. Good luck with you.”

The sensation felt like it bubbled out of the top of her skull and she had to shake her head to right herself.

She waited for a moment and then-

_Oh, Sparkle!_ _...Your voice is a little warbled, which can happen if you’re on the edge of the distance..._

Orem’s voice in her head started loud but quickly faded to become incomprehensible. Sparkle frowned and flipped open the spellbook to an earlier chapter. She would call that a mixed success - the spell  _ had _ worked, she was just so far out in the far realms that the power in it ran out before it could complete. Which was, hopefully, not a fault with her, but the spell. Perhaps it was time to move up and start working on far sending.

She flipped ahead in the book to those pages and right away she could see the similarities. She could also see a huge amount of new runes, and the words involved didn’t even look pronounceable. 

“Oh boy,” she said quietly. Then she jumped as there was a series of slams on her door.

“Sparkle! Found an island! Come see!” Fangs shouted from the other side of the door. Sparkle snapped the book shut and tossed it on the bed. Later then.

Now that they had sailed out this far things had gotten a little  _ weird _ . The sky stopped changing - now it was a constant shade of greyish-pink with the sun resting on the horizon behind them, never quite rising or setting. The shadows were always long and it seemed the further out they sailed the colder the air grew.

Fangs, Aluxe and Randus all stood at the prow of the ship, heads tilted to get a view of whatever island was out there. She joined them and after a moment of squinting it became obvious - far off on the horizon, but actually quite visible in the pinkish light, was a squat island probably no more than a square mile in any direction. Someone passed Sparkle a spyglass and the closer look only raised more questions. The entire island was covered with a strange structure - nothing that could quite be called a  _ building _ , just pillars and archways whose architecture seemed to warp and twist into each other.

As they sailed closer they could pick out another thing: some of those structures had been destroyed only on a small corner of the island, in much the same way as the village they had come from. Aluxe picked up the machine that they had left sitting on deck and watched the indicator as he walked back and forth. After a few minutes of this, he set it back down and nodded.

“If Ulridan did that,” he gestured at the island, “Then we’re on the right track.”

Randus hummed and nodded in agreement. Fangs didn’t seem like she bought it.

“You think we should go down there? Make sure?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Sparkle agreed.

So, with a bit of careful maneuvering, they brought the Devil-Tzar close to the island - close enough that it was an easy feat to simply sink the gangplank deep into the dull grey sand. The four of them made their way off the ship and warily into the ruins. They hadn’t seen any movement from a distance, but this place had an abundance of hiding spots. The architecture was hard to look at and even harder to navigate, there was nothing in the entire structure that really differentiated one part from another, and were it not for their footprints in the dark grey sand it would have been easy to become lost. To top that off the place was completely silent, the air was heavy and unmoving, and the four of them made their way over to the destroyed section of the island in an uneasy quiet.

When they reached it, Ulridan’s path became immediately clear - here he had left giant visible footprints in the sand that had remained undisturbed after his passage. Aluxe leaned over one and craned his neck to look back at the ship.

“Looks about right. Though I’m a little concerned about uh… This.” 

He straightened himself and gestured at the strange construction behind them. Randus, too, was staring at a twisted column that had been knocked to the ground, frown etched into his face.

“I think… This is void related.” He sighed heavily. “Which would fit, considering where the eggs came from.”

“Hm.” Little Sparkle stepped away from the footprints to stand next to him and look at the pillar. Up close she could see it was covered with tiny, tiny markings that looked too random to be a language. “Why destroy their own building? Maybe they don’t have enough control to walk Ulridan around it?”

Randus shook his head and out of the corner of her eye she saw him nervously pull at the sleeve of his coat.

“In my experience, they really don’t care about what they destroy”

As if on cue, the ground began to shake, sending ripples through the astral sea. The archways and columns began to lift out of the sand, twisting and bending. Fangs lunged forwards at once, sinking her scimitar into what turned out to be not stone, but rubbery flesh. The entire structure was pulling upwards and upwards, revealing that it was not separate structures but a single spidery entity. The astral sea rushed into the holes it was leaving behind and the four shared only a quick glance before they all understood - this was not a creature they would be fighting.

Little Sparkle darted forward, leaping over an archway then sliding under a pillar that was suddenly swinging at her sideways. Every surface was slick and offered no purchase; some part of Sparkle’s mind registered that all of the tiny markings had opened up into millions of dark, beady eyes. Gross, but not worth focusing on as Aluxe bounded over something that was probably a leg and turned back to help her and Randus in turn. Then it was her turn to pull them, beneath an archway that flattened out to stop them and up the gangplank. She had lost sight of Fangs until moments later she appeared, running on all fours and leaping and bounding over every bit of architecture that rose in her way, until with one final great jump she launched herself off the creature, bypassing the gangplank and scrabbling onto the deck of the ship itself. The crew didn’t need to wait to hear the command to pull away, and the engine started with a sudden jerk to the side.

This creature, whatever it was, didn’t seem interested in pursuing them any further. It moved around a bit more, pulling itself up out of the astral sea, and then stopped, as still as it had been when they arrived.

Aluxe sat down on the deck with a heavy breath and the rest joined him. After a moment, Fangs bared her teeth and then spat out a chunk of black rubber flesh that wobbled as it bounced across the deck and into the astral sea. She grunted.

“I hate void stuff.”

“Agreed.” Aluxe sighed. He sounded almost perplexed but then he turned to look at Little Sparkle. “Nice job, by the way. Nice to finally see you in action up close.”

She laughed a little breathlessly, but couldn’t respond before Randus spoke, his eyes still locked on the living monument as they sailed away.

“I’m afraid we’re only going to be seeing more like that.”

“Hm.” Sparkle considered. It seemed like she had the least experience with the void of anyone here. “I wonder why it didn’t move when Ulridan walked through?”

“Probably didn’t think it could challenge him. Him being a god and all,” Fangs seemed sure of herself until Randus spoke.

“Could be. Or maybe that creature is an aspect of the same god who left the eggs.”

“What?” Asked Sparkle.

“Huh?” Agreed Aluxe and Fangs. Randus stammered and blushed.

“It’s ah… The void gods are sort of. Made up of smaller gods?” 

The three of them stared at him until he continued, and Randus tentatively explained the rather complicated relationship the void gods had with each other and their own portfolios. It turned out that the disparate parts that made up a void god would have their own personalities; sometimes those personalities would be counter to that of the main god itself. And then there was the theory of what a void god even  _ was _ \- Randus only had theories, but the thought that maybe void gods were something like the empty space that god left behind after a god was made. Killing Ulridan would be, in effect, killing a void god, too. His eyes grew distant as he spoke and Little Sparkle couldn’t help but wonder how many times, in how many timelines he’d had to deal with the void.

* * *

If time hadn’t been meaningless before, it certainly was now. The only metric they had to track the time they had spent out here was the amount of supplies they had used up. Everyone on board was growing more and more anxious, the only thing that stopped the mood from becoming  _ too _ gloomy was the fact that they could return to Waypoint whenever they so desired. Sparkle had given up the magic practice for the time being and spent the majority of her time on the uppermost deck with a spyglass and bundled up in blankets. That meant she was the first one to spot...  _ something _ that they were sailing towards. From this distance, it certainly looked humanoid, and it was definitely moving.

This time she was the one to run below decks, knocking on doors to announce that she had spotted something, quickly glancing at the machine as she went to confirm that it was in fact pointing at what she hoped was Ulridan. Fangs-for-Foes burst out of her cabin right away, snatching the spyglass and practically running up the stairs. Aluxe poked his head out a moment afterwards, looking first at Sparkle and then to where Fangs had run before following.

Sparkle knew that Aluxe had been forced into sharing his cabin with Randus after his sudden arrival so she peeked in to see that Randus was in fact in there, too. If he had noticed her presence or announcement he made no indication - he was hunched over the small desk in the room, scribbling furiously on a sheet of paper in a pile that was already at an impressive size.

“Randus?” He still didn’t look up, until she came into the room and put a hand on his shoulder, then he jumped, “What are you working on that’s so important?”

It took him a moment to move his focus from his writing to Sparkle.

“It’s uh… Sort of a theory about stabilizing time.” Randus smiled, but he just looked  _ tired _ . Sparkle had noticed that version of him, whether he was younger or simply had experienced different things, seemed more melancholy. He went on, “I don’t know if it will work, or if it will make it any harder for me to slip through timelines, but it should help you at least.”

Sparkle peered over his shoulder to look at what he had written, and if the sending ritual had been complicated this was absolutely perplexing. Maybe Randus was just using a shorthand she didn’t recognize but most of what he had written was totally incomprehensible to her. He shook his head and stood up, “Sorry, I just figured I should finish writing it all down before-” he hesitated, “- you know.”

Before he could follow Fangs and Aluxe outside Sparkle surged forwards and pulled Randus into another hug.

“We’re gonna fix this, alright? I promise.”

She could feel Randus nod against the top of her head, but some part of her knew that he didn’t really believe he would be around for it.

They went outside without another word. Aluxe and Fangs were arguing back and forth about something but they quieted down as Sparkle and Randus joined them. By now the ship had closed enough of the distance that even without the spyglass Sparkle could see that the figure was indeed roughly dwarf-shaped. Of added interest was that he was walking on another island, one that was quite similar in many ways to the one with the monster they had escaped from not long prior. It had low lying beaches of grey sand, but instead of arches and pillars, it was covered in thousands of obelisks that were tilted every-which-way in the unstable ground.

Aluxe took one last look through the spyglass and tossed it back to her. Then he turned to the crew who had also gathered behind them and started calling for them to get their weapons - including the harpoon guns he had been so proud of.

Sparkle listened to the commotion behind her but kept her eye on Ulridan. He looked about the same as she had seen him last, red hair with streaks of grey, eyes wide open and staring blankly ahead, one hand balled into a fist and pulled up to his chest. So that was the location of the egg.

As they caught up to and sailed around him she spotted another problem. If this island was in the material plane it would be an atoll, and in the middle of the bend of the island was a  _ hole _ . Not a whirlpool, just a hole where the astral sea seemed to stop entirely. It was hard to see the edges of it with the light as strange as it was out here, but once she had spotted it the reason for its presence became immediately clear. If Ulridan continued on his path - and he would if they didn’t do something - he would walk directly into it.

She shouted as much to Aluxe, and in response had an oversized crossbow hefted into her arms. With the hole as a factor, they were already about as close to Ulridan as they were going to get - Fangs had already taken a shot with a hurled javelin that bounced uselessly off of the god’s arm. Sparkle took aim and shot at his hand to much the same effect. An assortment of other projectiles followed behind, most of them bouncing uselessly off to land in the sand or the astral sea. Those that found purchase didn’t so much as phase the god, who made another ponderous step closer to his likely death.

“This isn’t working!” Sparkle shouted, and at once Fangs-For-Foes blurred past her eyes. She heaved, tossing a heavy chain over the side first before leaping after it herself. Sparkle got the idea at once and heaved her crossbow into the arms of someone else before following. They didn’t have to stop him, they just had to make him stumble.

Fangs had run a good thirty yards across the atoll before she turned back and saw that Sparkle had followed. She smiled with her teeth, then hurled one end of the chain back towards Sparkle, who caught it and backed up until it was taut - they had maybe twenty seconds before Ulridan took a few more steps and crossed the chain. She probably wouldn’t have a hope of holding onto it against a god so she wrapped her end around an obelisk around a few times for good measure. Far too late now to be worried about these being a part of another void creature. Still, more arrows and bolts and harpoons were hitting the sand around here, hardly making a dent in Ulridan. Somewhere above there were also fireballs, a demon that Aluxe had called doing it’s best to wake Ulridan as well.

Then there was another more solid thump, and Aluxe himself was at her side, throwing another chain across the way to Fangs who caught it and pulled it tight around her forearms. Randus joined them too, right at the moment that Ulridan’s boot moved under the chain and his ankle pulled it tighter. Fangs was clearly straining, her heels leaving a skid mark in the sand as she was being dragged along by the movement, and the obelisk was splintering, shards of whatever it was made from chipping off. None of them really expected the chain to last as long as it did before it snapped, first one end and then the other, each one whipping back towards them with a dangerous backlash.

But it was enough, Ulridan had been knocked off balance and was falling, the fist that held the egg opened wide, and the sphere went flying. And then it seemed like it was enough, but too late. They watched as Ulridan was toppled, half of him landing in the astral sea, and the egg sailed above, arcing perfectly to land in the center of the hole in the astral sea. There was a long moment where it seemed like that might be it. Fangs let the chains fall from her arms with a series of clinks, panting. Then the moment passed; whatever magic had been keeping the hole static broke, and the astral sea started to rush in with a deafening sound. This island had been wind-less too, but now it was howling around them as air also rushed in, sand kicking up around them. And Ulridan was pulled along too, body falling face-first into wherever that hole led. 

As an astral ship, the Devil-Tzar floated a good few inches off of the surface of the astral sea but it too was being slowly pulled towards the hole, crew unsure of what to do, with all of the ones in command on the island. Aluxe waved towards the ship and shouted something that sounded like “Let’s get out of there” and no more was needed. He took one of the snapped chains and ran back to the ship, tossing it over the railing for some quick-witted crewman to catch. He climbed up and Sparkle scampered up after him, then they both reached out and pulled Randus up by the arms. Somewhere in all of the chaos, her eyes registered the machine Aluxe and Randus had built sliding across the deck from the wind, the dial in the middle spinning wildly. Then Fangs grabbed the chain, but she didn’t climb up right away, and it was obvious what was wrong. The arm she had been holding the chains with was held close to her side, fur and skin worn off from the torsion of the chain. It took all three of them to pull her on board, and then Aluxe was away again, shouting to start the solenoid even as the ship was inching closer and closer to what was now  _ very much _ a whirlpool.

It didn’t take long, the crewmen were probably only seconds away from leaving without them. One golden ring formed around them, then another, and a picture entirely different from where they were formed in front of them - it was Waypoint, mid-afternoon, other astral ships bustling to and from the harbors in the distance. But there was something behind the image too; a long thin arm had emerged from the astral sea, and it definitely didn’t belong to Ulridan.

No one wanted to wait around to see who it belonged to, and with the help of the rushing waters they were quickly through, the far reaches suddenly very far away. No one was quite sure whether or not to celebrate; sure, they had survived, but Ulridan hadn’t. In the end, Aluxe rolled his head back and groaned with annoyance.

“You don’t think that arm will be willing to pay us for the trouble of delivering that egg, do you?”

Sparkle laughed, though she felt like her legs would give out from under her at any moment.

“Won’t know until you ask.”

Aluxe looked at her and snorted, then brushed out his feathers with one hand and turned back to the crew to start directing them to sail back to Waypoint.

Beside her, Fangs was holding out her arm and looking very uncomfortable as Randus covered it with some sort of glowing blue goo. Sparkle was pretty sure it was the same he had used on her before and hoped it wouldn't be as hard to get out of fur as it was out of feathers. When he was done, Fangs snatched her arm back and stalked away. Randus turned to look at Sparkle.

“I’m sorry that, uh… Didn’t work out. I wish I would be around to help you clean up, but…” He waved a hand in the air, gesturing at nothing.

“No- So soon?”

Last time, it had seemed like he had been with them for months, but the time they had been in the far realms was entirely unquantifiable. Randus smiled.

“Afraid so. You know where my notes are, right?”

She nodded, and he reached out to shake her hand one last time, his fingers already getting blurry and discolored at the edges.

And all of him was blurry and there were endless reflected images of different versions of him, and then he was gone. Sparkle sighed, not sure whether to take this visit as a sign of hope or not. Then she saw Aluxe walking out of the corner of her eye, looking concerned and clearly having seen what just happened to Randus.

“Should we be worried for him?”

She shook her head.

“No. Maybe. There’s not a lot we can do. This just… Happens to him.”

“...If you say so.”

Aluxe seemed unsure how to respond to that, or to her grim expression, so he reached out and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder twice before a crewman distracted him away. How very strange, to feel worse about losing Randus the second time than she had the first. Though this time, at least, she had an idea how to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think in Season 3 Rodrigo mentioned a little bit about how once something gets too deep in the astral sea it disappears (unless it’s a god) and I’ve succeeded in not really answering that question myself except for “I dunno, probably void stuff”
> 
> And on that note, man there was so much ‘void stuff’ that I want to know about, like what happened to a Manner of Sorts, and ‘doesn’t the void scattering a bunch of invasive species everywhere mean that they’re probably gonna eventually win in their goal of destroying the world’. Even after the show, their actions have consequences! Though also them being agents of change, I think it makes sense if they change, too.
> 
> And of course thanks to Styyxx for beta reading 💕


	3. Chapter 3

Little Sparkle, Aluxe and Fangs were crammed into a booth in a bar meant for people half their size. Each one of them nursed a drink, and Fangs was on her third shot of something Sparkle was sure would make her sick if she tried to drink it. While none of them seemed to have taken the loss of  _ Ulridan _ particularly hard, Aluxe and Fangs were not happy with the idea that they had failed the job, and on top of that not getting anything for their trouble. The one small positive was that relative to the nearly three months they had been away, it had been only half that time in Waypoint.

Sparkle wasn’t exactly happy herself, but when she considered everything that had happened recently, and everything she could do about it, Ulridan didn’t register very highly on her list of concerns. Instead, one issue in particular kept drawing her mind back, and it wasn’t too long before she was digging around in her pockets to pull out the sheaf of notes Randus had left behind. 

Aluxe craned his neck to look over his drink and try and get a glimpse at the papers in her hands.

“What is that? You were looking at it before.”

She hesitated for a moment - some small part of her still didn’t want to give Aluxe any more information than necessary - before she reminded herself that wasn’t how things worked between them anymore. She laid the notes on the table for him to see.

“Randus gave them to me. I… actually wanted to talk about that.” Sparkle took a deep breath. “Since we don’t have any pressing business at the moment I was going to ask if you guys wanted to try fixing time?”

Their reaction was about what she expected. Aluxe blinked and opened his beak, looked up to Fangs, who was drinking like she hadn’t heard anything, then back at Sparkle. 

“...If we could it would be nice, I guess. But if it’s as complicated as that looks…” He gestured at the papers scattered over the table with one hand, “I don’t know if it’s a three-person job. Can you read that stuff?”

“No,” Sparkle admitted, “But if Orem is still in the astral sea I might be able to meet up with him. He worked with Randus for a long time, so he should be able to at least point us in the right direction.”

Aluxe ran one hand through the feathers of his face, eyes flicking up to Fangs who pointedly had not said anything, before sighing.

“If you think we have a chance then we may as well give it a try.”

_ Now  _ Fangs snorted.

“You’re okay with this because you  _ like _ her. What about me? I want to get paid.”

She sounded drunk, but not as drunk as she should have been considering how much she’d had, which only made her bold statement all the most embarrassing. Sparkle shot a look at Fangs instead of Aluxe - this would only be worse if she saw that he was as embarrassed as she was. There was a moment of pause, neither of them quite believing what she had said, then Sparkle smoothed down her own feathers and cleared her throat.

“If you help, you can keep the sword.”

Fangs blinked and leaned back in her seat, looking bewildered. She hadn’t let the Bronze Prince’s sword out of her sight since she had gotten it, the fact that it wasn’t technically  _ hers _ and that that might be a problem apparently had only just occurred to her. She reached one hand over her shoulder to the hilt of the blade and for a tense moment it seemed like she might draw it and raise a fuss, but Fangs just knitted her eyebrows together and squinted.

“Fine. I do like this sword.”

Her hand dropped and went back to cradling her mug, further interest in the conversation now lost. 

Sparkle finally looked back at Aluxe who was waving down the halfling at the bar to bring another drink, and she reached out a hand to signal for one for herself as well. He obviously wasn’t planning on talking about what Fangs had said and for once the butterflies in her stomach made Sparkle not want to pry.

A barmaid was over to them quickly and slid the drinks onto their table. Before either of them could start changing the subject, Aluxe’s attention snapped to something behind her. Sparkle couldn't get a good look from around Fangs, but she didn’t need to, because the person approaching sat down into the booth next to Aluxe, pushing him against the wall. She had light blonde, almost white hair, grey skin, with square patches of lighter skin over her eyes.

“Oh!” Sparkle was as delighted to see the woman as she was for the easy distraction. “Aluxe, Fangs, this is the Queen’s Irreproachable Voice. Queen, these are Aluxe and Fangs. I thought you would have been long gone by now?”

The Queen’s Irreproachable Voice waved a hand half-heartedly, not really acknowledging the introduction that Sparkle had made for her.

“Nah. Turns out the research they had going on up in that tower was a little farther along than we thought.” She sighed, “You guys want to go hunt the science guys down for me? Maybe burn some research?”

“Uh-” She hesitated and looked at Aluxe. It wasn’t as though going to fix time first would actually mean it got done any faster. And Aluxe didn’t know anything about vertices, or the fact that if that research went  _ too _ far Oversight would just destroy a significant part of the world to wipe it out. But she couldn’t just  _ say _ all that, especially not in front of the Queen’s Irreproachable Voice. But before she could express any of that Aluxe spoke up.

“That would probably mean a trip out to the Gulag Magnificent which I hear is a pretty dangerous place nowadays with dear ol’ Asmodeus gone. Are you  _ paying _ , or...?” 

“Yeah, can we loot?” Fang’s interjected. 

“Oh, you guys are  _ those _ . Eh. Yeah, whatever. You guys want what, gold pieces?”

“...Platinum, preferably.” 

“Sure.” She sighed overdramatically, “Uh... you, green bird, you know about all this stuff already right? I’m busy, so I’m gonna go ahead and go, but I’ll check back in with you guys later.”

And without much more than that she slid out of her seat to head off - only on her way out she bumped shoulders with a short man. She didn’t pay him much mind but Aluxe’s beak, which was already open to make some comment, hung open at who he saw.

“Uh, hey... Randus?”

And indeed, the man who had made his way to stand at the edge of their table was Randus. His coat was red and most of his mechanical parts were made out of some sort of dark grey, rough metal, but his face was the same. He stood there with an unusual confidence, though with there being no way to tell what he’d been through the reason for that wasn’t clear.

“Hi,” He said, and sat down in the spot that the deva had just vacated, “I hope Oversight doesn't have anything too bad in store this time?”

Sparkle couldn’t help but stare for a long moment before shaking her head a little and saying, “No. Well, I don’t think so at least but I think it kind of depends on us.”

Randus simply nodded and fell quiet, that apparently being all the context he needed. It took a few more moments after that before Fangs finally tilted her head down and said, “Hello? Where were you, the makeover dimension?”

Randus blinked and looked over to Sparkle, who shrugged. 

“...Something like that. I just… Stepped out of the timeline for a bit.”

“...Whatever.”

Aluxe looked at her with wide eyes, feathers pressed to his face in a way that indicated he found everything that had just happened exceedingly strange.

“...So, we’re going to…?”

“The Gulag Magnificent.” she sighed.

* * *

The Gulag was actually not the first stop; first, Sparkle led them back to the enormous lighthouse that was in the center of Waypoint. Many of the lower floors had been cleaned up but the higher they went the more chaos they found. Some of it was chaos that Sparkle recognized as having caused but a lot of it wasn’t. The room with the sarcophagi, for example, was completely destroyed, and there were far more corpses littered about than she remembered leaving behind.

When they finally made it to the floor that they had been doing research on the vertices, the problem immediately became apparent. The rooms below were in various states of bloody mess; this room, while there  _ was _ the occasional splash of blood, had been otherwise stripped clean. All that was left were a few desks and some scrap metal. When Sparkle made it clear that it wasn’t what she had been expecting, Fangs-for-Foes broke away from them, crouched low and sniffing at the air.

The three of them picked over what was left in frustration. Sparkle found some notes crumpled in a corner, but they only told her what she already knew the machines were for. She handed them off to Randus to see if he could find anything more in them but he had no luck either. 

Aluxe was picking up and examining whatever metal bits he could find.

“These kind of remind me of Coil technology,” he concluded.

“Oh, yeah. There’s probably a good reason for that.” Sparkle came over to look at them too. It looked like it was paneling for something that had been dented and ripped off. “Asmodeus was sort of spying on us for a while.”

“That so? That’s kind of messed up.”

He didn’t take his eyes off of the panel, but Little Sparkle at once got the impression that she had said too much. Aluxe was smart, smart enough to figure a lot out on just that admission. And here she was, still stuck between the feeling that he would use it against her and knowing they were allies now.

Fangs finished her circuit of the room, standing up straight as she walked over to them.

“There were 8 of them, though I think one of them probably died before getting too far.” She announced, ignoring the tension in the air. 

“Can you identify them if we find them?” Sparkle asked. Fangs bared her teeth in distaste for the question, which was as positive an answer and Sparkle could have hoped for.

“Well-” Aluxe tossed the metal plate back onto the table with a wobbly sounding  _ clang _ , ”Let's get going then, shall we?”

* * *

She should have expected this conversation to happen, sooner or later.

They had loaded onto the ship and set sail. The Devil-Tzar’s route between the Gulag Magnificent and Waypoint was direct, likely intentionally so. The journey probably wouldn’t take long, but it took long  _ enough _ for Sparkle to have some downtime and for Aluxe and Fangs to corner her in the hall outside her cabin.

“So, Sparkle,” Aluxe  _ sounded _ conversational but there was a seriousness in his eyes, and in Fang’s, that belied his tone, “What is going on with Randus exactly? And what was with that grey lady?”

Fangs huffed, “Yeah, I wanna know what Oversight is.” 

“That’s, uhm-” They hadn’t caught Sparkle off guard by showing up, but the questions had, “Well, Randus is sort of… Not... from in our timeline?”

They looked at each other and back to her, waiting for further explanation. Sparkle’s mind was racing - Randus was the  _ easy  _ thing to explain.

“Asmodeus did something to him. I’m not really sure what. I think it was an issue he already had that got made worse. But now I guess Randuses from different timelines or… Maybe points in time just slip into ours sometimes.”

That clearly hadn’t been the explanation Aluxe or Fangs had been expecting, though after the initial confusion they seemed to be hande it pretty smoothly.

“...Can we trust this Randus if that’s the case?” Aluxe looked back at the cabin he and Randus shared.

“I think as long as we’re doing the right thing he’ll be on our side.”

“...hm.”

Aluxe seemed unconvinced. Fangs snorted and bared her front teeth.

“ _ Right thing _ . Sure. Fine. What about that Queen lady? She a time traveler too?”

“She… Well, sort of.” That would certainly be an easier explanation, and it was technically true, but it didn’t really put into context the gravity of what dealing with them meant. “She’s a part of a group that is very specific about who knows who they are. To the point of killing people who know that they don't want to know. And they might put the world in danger if we don't help them out?”

“But  _ you _ know.” Aluxe was looking at her oddly now, like he was trying to catch her in a lie and couldn’t find one. “And  _ you’re _ alive.”

“Yeah. I am,” Sparkle’s feathers flattened defensively, “But I don’t make the call about who gets to know. You have to prove to the people who do that you’re not gonna misuse that information.”

“If they don’t know that we know…”

Yeah. She had been worried that would be the conclusion he came to.

“Look, it’s just dangerous information to be spreading around. And considering that I’m still not entirely sure about everyone’s allegiances…”

She tried to soften the blow but Aluxe still puffed up in a display of absolute affront and… hurt? His shoulders only drew up for a moment but that was long enough for Sparkle to notice and for it to hit her that  _ oh, he didn’t think I was still bothered by that _ .

Then Fangs barked, “Nah. Fuck that. Tell me or I’m not risking my life.”

_ That _ one was a fair point and Sparkle couldn’t help but laugh; the tension didn’t break, but it lessened.

“Fair enough. But it’s kind of complicated, and you  _ cannot _ tell anyone.”

And then she told them. A little about the vertices and about Oversight and even a bit about Lek. She didn’t mention the Coil’s involvement as much as she could help it, or that the research they were going to destroy was from what Asmodeus had seen, but she knew Aluxe was smart enough to figure it out. He did, in fact, look deep in thought, but he had since before the start of Sparkle’s explanation.

Fangs was significantly less impressed.

“So it’s just more planes with their own planes? Doesn’t sound that special to me.”

“I know it doesn’t sound like much to you, but you can’t tell anyone, alright?”

Fangs gave Sparkle a withering side-eye, “I’d have to care enough to remember.”

She stalked off to the upper decks, all of her questions suitably answered. Aluxe nodded and stepped back a little more carefully.

“Thank you. For sharing.” His voice was composed, and as quiet as she’d ever heard it. That set off alarm bells in her head, but Sparkle wasn’t quite able to pin what for. Aluxe took another step back and then turned away, moving in the opposite direction as Fangs. It would probably just be best to give him some time.

* * *

That evening, Sparkle brought a plate of food to Randus’ cabin, as well as the bundle of notes that the other version of himself had left behind. This incarnation of Randus had been even more quiet than usual and had seemed perfectly content to spend his time alone. Sparkle tried not to dwell on the sad implications of that. 

Randus looked up at her from some tinkering he was doing on one of his arms as she peeked through the door.

“Hey, Sparkle.” He smiled, and it gave the impression that nothing she could have come to say was going to surprise him. It probably wouldn’t.

“Hey. I wanted to get your thoughts on something.”

She held out the bundle of notes and Randus took them without hesitation, scanning over then creasing his eyebrows as he flipped through the pages.

“Another version of you left those behind,” She offered, “They were theories about stabilizing time, but I don’t really know what to make of them.”

He nodded, but his eyes were fixed to the papers. Sparkle would take that as a positive, then. 

“I’ll give you some time, but if you could help us figure out an actual  _ plan _ that would be great.”

He nodded again, smaller this time, and she sighed, sliding the tray of food onto the bed next to him. 

With that off her mind, she left Randus to it, walking across the ship back to her own cabin. It was one thing off her mind, which gave her time to focus on another. She had been experimenting with the far sending ritual, but if she wanted to follow the same progression she had for the normal version of sending it would take far more room than she had available. That meant her options were to find somewhere on the ship with more room, or to move on right away to the version that relied on her magical expertise. And she certainly wasn’t going to be sending a message to her father in public, which meant that she was just going to have to make the leap.

That meant a circle drawn on paper, as before, but double the size and with runes even more delicate and specific. The ink it was drawn with was made from crushed up residuum so every mistake she made was costly. The incense, too, was a long shiny stick of silver that didn’t seem to want to catch, but when it did the embers on the end glowed a deep purplish-blue. She could feel the power buzzing in the bones of her arm before even starting the movements for the spell.

The research she had done had made it very clear that in the case of far sending, visualizing the recipient was very important. She wasn’t sure where Orem even  _ was _ ; some mistakes would make far sending function the same as the original ritual, which would leave her unsure if it had even worked as intended. And she still didn’t know what to say to her father.

So the face she pictured in her mind wasn’t Orem, or her dad, but a big brown minotaur. The movements were the same as before but the way she held her fingers was very specific and the smoke ring billowed out to form several concentric circles, each one within the other. Much like before, the buzzing in her arm vibrated into her chest, the freezing and burning from before was present but was impossible to feel past the tremors. Then the smoke fell to the floor and there was a sudden stillness that not even the sounds outside could breach.

“Hey there, Teach.” She didn’t mean to sound so breathless, but she couldn’t help it, “I’m practicing magic, let me know if you get this. Take care, alright?”

The response was so quick it surprised her.

“ _ Little Sparkle?” _ The next thing that followed was a booming laugh, then, “Yeah that sounds like you. Message received, you take care too.” With that, the smoke at her feet dissipated and the sound of the Devil-Tzar came flooding back in. She sat on the floor right there, shaking her arm out as she did. It was nice to hear from Big Teach, and she was happy she had, but having succeeded in doing so the amount of excuses she had for not messaging her father was dwindling. Now she just had to figure out what to  _ say. _


	4. Chapter 4

The Gulag Magnificent was falling apart. 

It made sense, Sparkle supposed. Asmodeus was gone, his star had faded from the sky. But it was still surprising to see an entire island, from the architecture to the land itself, just crumbling into the astral sea.

Not to say that it was abandoned - there were flocks of what were presumably devils flocking in huge numbers above the place. Luckily the reputation of the Devil-Tzar preceded them, and they weren’t even bothered by a portmaster when they sailed up to dock. It seemed the bureaucracy was decaying as quickly as the Gulag was.

As soon as the four of them got off the ship the chaos became apparent. There seemed to be some sort of split between those who formerly followed Asmodeus, and it looked to be between the devils and the mortals who still remained. Unfortunately, they all fell into the latter category, and as soon as they were spotted by the creatures in the sky they had to rush for cover, into an abandoned warehouse to avoid a rain of brimstone. A few good shots in return were enough to drive them back for the moment, but it was probably only a matter of time until another group targeted them.

They were hiding behind a stack of overturned boxes, Randus peeked over towards the door as Fangs snapped her head back and forth, sniffing constantly. After a few seconds of this, she grunted and hunched down with the rest of them.

“Nothing yet. Too much stuff burning.”

“Hm,” Sparkle ran one hand through her feathers, “Do you think we could pass as ex-Asmodeans? I’d probably have to hang back, but...”

Aluxe shot a glance at Sparkle, eyes lingering for a moment too long before flicking over to Fangs.

“Hopefully we’ll only have to pass for a group that wants to kill some devils. Which is technically true.”

Fangs growled.

“We should just let them sort each other out. Save ourselves the trouble.”

Randus shook his head.

“It would be too dangerous to let the information I think they have fall into devil hands.”

They all jumped at the sound of a crash from outside, a reminder that they wouldn't be safe in this place for long. They moved as a group to the door on the other side of the warehouse, Sparkle peeking through a gap that had been torn in the wood. The source of the sound was immediately clear - a section of a nearby building had collapsed, its upper levels sliding straight into the astral sea. That had scared most of the devils away so with a wave from Sparkle the four of them bolted across the empty street, vaulting over someone’s makeshift barricade and into another building.

The far wall had been torn down in some kind of blast, making this place an equally bad place to hide, but Sparkle and Fangs spotted a trap door to a lower floor at the same time. They both leaped to either side of it to pull it up for Randus and Aluxe to descend before going down themselves.

It took a moment for Sparkle’s eyes to adjust to the darkness but when they did there was already something to worry about. Aluxe held his rod out across Randus in a defensive position, across the room was a red haired woman standing with her own stave held out towards them.

She certainly didn’t  _ look _ like someone who would worship Asmodeus, she was probably human, and she looked pretty young and frightened out of her mind. The only thing that gave her allegiance away was the small necklace she wore of a pentagram and the torn remains of a black robe. She stepped back and gripped her weapon with her other hand, eyes flicking between all of them in a panic.

Aluxe held out his other hand out to the side and slowly pulled his own weapon back.

“I think we’re cool. Alright?”

She let out a long shaky breath and pulled her staff closer to her chest.

“Alright?”

“We’re here looking for someone, just point us in the right direction and we’ll be out of your way.”

She was hard to read, especially in the dim light filtering from the trap door above, but Sparkle could clearly see her swallow as she nodded.

Aluxe continued, voice even, “We’re looking for some scientist types. Any idea where they might be holed up?”

The girl's eyebrows pulled together at the question.

“Probably the main cells, but that place is totally swamped. You’re not going further in, are you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about us. Is there another way out of here?”

She nervously raised a hand and pointed a finger into the darkness behind her.

“If you keep going straight you’ll come out a few blocks down.”

Aluxe nodded at her and started walking in that direction. He didn’t glance back at her, but the rest of them did, and she was watching them go. The thing that alarmed Little Sparkle the most about that interaction was not that the girl had seemed deceitful, it was that she  _ hadn’t _ . Either Sparkle had missed something or else things here were even worse than they looked.

True to her word, there was a long hallway that they started to creep down. There was the occasional branch and each one of them would lead into its own long hallway, but there was never a sign of anyone else or of any sort of trap. Sparkle would occasionally look back to see if they were being followed but that end of the hallway remained empty. When she turned back she would usually spot one of the others doing the same. It was dark, so she could only barely see Aluxe but he seemed to do so most of all.

And yet, to their surprise, there was no incident as they traveled the entire, considerable length of the tunnel. It ended in an iron bar door; there was a cobblestone street outside that was in poor repair, something large had torn chunks out of it and scattered rubble all over the street, and these buildings too, were covered in scorch marks. As they gathered at the door Aluxe pointed to the upper level of the building across the road - a group of stony skinned devils were perched motionless in the windows, watching the road.

Fangs pointed one claw below that - something was carved into the wall, difficult to see from the ash and not recognizable right away.

“Street sign. Main cells to the right. I’m inclined to make a run for it.” she paused to sniff, “One of them was around here, a while ago.”

Sparkle inched forward and looked up - there was only a sliver of sky visible past the overhang of the building and it was completely dark with swarming devils, so certainly not something that they could sneak by. She nodded, and Randus did too.

Aluxe nodded back, putting one hand on the door and holding three fingers up on the other. He silently counted down, and on zero pushed the door open and bolted outside. Sparkle watched Randus and Fangs go before darting out after them herself. 

Things went bad immediately, the sky filled with a horrible screeching, bodies came darting down at them - Fangs grabbed the tail of one thing and slammed it into another making a small gap for them to dash into - and then another demon dropped in front of them. It was probably two stories tall, and crushed smaller devils beneath it as it landed; there was a crazed look in its eye that Sparkle had never seen in a demon. It pulled back one fist and slammed it into the ground, sending up a spray of stones and the four of them scattering in two different directions. Sparke scampered between its legs, catching a glimpse of Fangs hefting Randus over her shoulders. Then a rain of fireballs came from above and she didn’t have time to focus on that, dodging and weaving between them. She came skidding to a halt and the building that housed the ‘main cells’ became immediately clear - a tall metal building surrounded by an open plaza - the top spires were shiny but on the ground level they looked stained and corroded. 

Sparkle dove behind the doorway of another building and peeked out. She seemed to have evaded the attention of the smaller devils, who were now fighting amongst themselves; all this was highly unusual for devils, from what she understood, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about this. Her eye caught a string of gold, magic, and connected it to another shape. Aluxe had cast something and slipped past the swarm himself. She signaled to him with one hand to catch his eye and he signaled back, pointing towards the metal building. With his distraction in place, it was fairly simple for her to sneak around the back of the building and down an alleyway until she was at the edge of the plaza. Aluxe had taken a similar path and after catching each other’s eye again, there was a brief moment of waiting before he took off running towards the building. Sparkle moved in the same moment and they converged at the door. It was locked, and without losing a beat Sparkle pulled out her tools and got to work; the lock was complicated, so as she worked Aluxe put his back to her to keep an eye out, but it didn’t take long, and with a click, she shoved the door open and reached back to pull him through by the belt.

The door latched behind them with a loud thunk that echoed throughout the room and Sparkle shot a glance around - this was a large empty foyer, the desk at the far end was upended and the door to head deeper was slightly ajar. They were safer, but not  _ safe _ .

Aluxe hunched next to her, voice low.

“Fangs and Randus made it into cover, I think they’ll be alright if they’re smart about it. We should try and finish things here.”

She nodded back and they made their way to the far door. The room on the other side wasn’t what she expected - it was a catwalk that spanned over several lower floors of hexagonal platforms. Most of them were empty but some were not - some had strange machines, and one directly below them had pots of wilted plants that Sparkle distinctly recognized as being from the feywild. 

Aluxe elbowed her and pointed downwards - barely visible between the platforms was a faint light, one that was blue but that flickered like fire. Making no sound between them they dashed across the catwalk and down the stairs - four, then five, then six flights until they paused. The floor beneath them was a flat singular piece, all of the furniture had been pulled to one side, around the door through which the light was coming through the cracks. If this floor was a mirror of the one they had just come from then there wouldn’t be another entrance. They hesitated and looked at each other.

“I can get us in there but it won't be quiet,” Aluxe spoke so softly that he was barely audible, “Maybe we use that as a distraction to get in and destroy what we need?”

Sparkle shook her head.

“If you’re going to summon a demon we probably need to use it to  _ do _ the destroying. There's probably more people in there than just you and I can take out.”

“Hm.” 

“I’d say we should go down there and pretend we’re some ex-Asmodean looking for shelter, but I think they might recognize me.” 

“I don’t think they’d know me,” Aluxe’s eyes were fixed on the door, his expression unusually hard, “I could do it.”

Sparkle hesitated.

“If anyone can pull that off, it's you. If you’re sure…” His gaze flickered over to her for the briefest of moments before he looked back at the door, “I’ve got your back.”

Aluxe was silent for a long second. He was hard to read, but there was something brewing behind his words, and Sparkle was pretty sure she could guess what it was. Better to put this to rest now.

“Aluxe, if I didn’t trust you I wouldn’t put myself in this situation with you.”

The feathers on his face puffed up as he looked at her again, for just a second until he nodded and composed himself. 

She nodded back and after a moment he stepped away, staying low as he skulked down the final set of stairs. Aluxe stepped around the various traps that had been laid - magical, and certainly powerful, but obviously hastily made and easy to spot. He paused as she got to the door and leaned down to the peer at the crack beneath.

Sparkle followed after him shortly after, hiding behind the barricade they had set up and freezing behind a bookcase. Through the bits of furniture, she could just get a view of the door as Aluxe knocked.

“Hey!” he called out, sounding convincingly harried, “Hey! Is anyone in there?”

Sparkle strained her ears and could hear someone speaking from the other side.

“If you are a devil we have ways to burn you away where you stand!” 

“Well, I’m not, so that’s _ fine! _ I want to know what’s going on.”

Sparkle felt the feathers on the back of her neck rise as some feeling passed through her.  _ That _ was interesting - it seemed like they had used some sort of magic, maybe a scrying spell, and she had  _ felt  _ it. Perhaps an unintended benefit to learning magic?

“Stand back!”

So Aluxe did take a careful step back, there was the clicking of a latch and the door swung open, and the bright blue light forced Sparkle to narrow her eyes - there was a purple-skinned tiefling standing in the doorway with his hand outstretched, gathered up behind him was a collection of other humans and tieflings. As a group they looked rather ragged - one was wearing a bandage over one eye, another had a horn wrapped in gauze. Behind them, a collection of familiar-looking machinery - they had found what they were after. The tiefling in the front pointed a long finger at Aluxe. 

“Not a devil,” he said, “Just a mercenary trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”

The tiefling didn’t hesitate - a bolt of white energy flew out of his finger towards Aluxe, who didn’t move except to shake himself off as soon as the spell had passed through him. That was enough for the group to visibly react relieved, and though the tiefling didn’t seem happy he narrowed his eyes and nodded his head to the side.

“Get in here then, quick!” He hissed, and so Aluxe did.

The door closed behind them and Little Sparkle waited, still tense. She wouldn’t be able to help Aluxe much in there. After holding herself very still for a long minute with no obvious signal she rolled her shoulders and started to quietly move forward, stepping around the same rudimentary traps that Aluxe had until she was next to the door. She strained her ears again, trying to hear what was going on the other side. It was Aluxe’s voce:

“... a mercenary. I was supposed to pick up something here, only to find everything a total mess. Call me Tekiotl.”

Then, less clear, the tiefling’s voice.

“Well, what were you here for?”

“A job. I didn’t ask too many questions”

“Well I assume you’ve noticed that the job is no longer on. How did you get here?”

She could almost hear Aluxe shrug from the other side of the door.

“I snuck around. Now can I ask why you folks are the only ones I’ve been able to find around here? What’s wrong with the devils?”

A sigh.

“They have started fighting for supremacy and mortals are the lowest in their hierarchy. Or to put it bluntly, they are killing anyone they can’t subjugate, and that would be us.”

“Huh. Well, you guys look a little stuck. I might  _ happen _ to know a safe path out, if you’re looking…”

“...No. We’re working on our own way out. But if you’re still looking for coin, we’d pay for supplies.”

“Maybe. How much coin are you talking about here?”

Their voices faded into something Sparkle couldn’t hear as they moved away from the door. She moved back to her spot and waited. Minutes ticked by into hours - there was nothing from the other side of the door to indicate trouble, but that didn’t mean nothing was going on. Every second was one she had to convince herself that Aluxe had things under control, that she didn’t need to rush in. The moment she swallowed and started to stand, there was the quiet  _ thunk _ of the latch on the door. It swung open and out came Aluxe, walking away and looking care-free.

The door closed behind him and he paused to look back at it, then kept on walking. Sparkle stood up fully as he passed; he jumped, and then sighed, joining her behind the cover of the furniture.

“That sure took a while,” she whispered, “everything went alright?”

Aluxe nodded.

“I basically agreed to go get some supplies for them after getting some rest. But, you know, I spent that time making some marks around the place. So whenever you’re ready I can summon a demon in there. I won't be able to  _ control  _ it, but -“ he shrugged, “shouldn’t need to.”

She gestured towards the door.

“How many were in there? Do we need to be ready to run in and do some damage?”

“Seven, but only the one in charge seemed like he might be dangerous in a fight. If we take him out mine should be able to take care of the rest.”

“Then we’d better not give them a chance to figure out what you did.”

They each took a side of the door. Sparkle carefully fiddled with the latch until she was certain she could open it at a moment’s notice. She looked up at Aluxe who straightened his back and held out one hand. Sparkle had never closely examined Aluxe while he used his magic but it didn’t exactly look  _ comfortable _ . His eyes got this glazed-over look before flashing with a glow of light, fingers contorting in a way that, while probably natural, looked like it  _ hurt _ . The glowing threads of light she had seen before sprang out of them, extending into and  _ through _ the wall to the other room. Aluxe grabbed them and  _ yanked _ , shoulder too looking like it was barely remaining in its socket.

It had evidently worked - there was a scream and a crash from inside the room, and then the  _ woosh _ of fire. With one push of her lockpick the latch clicked and Sparkle pushed the door open. The tiefling had indeed managed to contain the demon with some sort of magical cage, but he wasn’t expecting an attack from behind. Sparkle leapt forward immediately and drove her dagger into his back. He collapsed with a sputter and the cage broke, the demon inside pulling itself up to its full height with a roar. Sparkle hadn’t seen this particular one before - this one was large and furry, with tiny feathered wings and huge tusks. It formed another fireball in its hands with a look of rage in its eyes, so she took the opportunity to skitter back through the door. As she closed it, it pushed back against her as the second blast came.

Her and Aluxe stood in silence as the sound of fighting continued. It devolved into grunting and crunching, then crashing. Aluxe gave a satisfied nod and released the fist he had been holding. With a final crash the sounds from inside stopped. Sparkle opened the door and they both peered inside. The room was black with soot, the machines had been largely crushed. 

Aluxe stepped in and kicked over a body that had been pushed near the door - the tiefling that had a single stab wound in his back.

“Nice work.”

“I could say the same to you.”

They moved around the room, doing the grim but all too familiar work of confirming the kills, and then back around pulling charred drawers out of desks and crumbling the remains of papers. Out of the corner of her eye, Sparkle saw Aluxe pull a sheaf of papers out that was relatively intact and scan the pages with interest. She made an effort not to show she had noticed, and watched as he flipped the page, paused to look at her, and tossed the papers into a pile of embers, where they went up in flames.

They kept on until the room was cleaned out. Sparkle dusted off her hands with a feeling of satisfaction. As far as requests from Oversight went, this one had been simple.

“I think that’s it. Should be enough to satisfy, anyways.”

Aluxe brushed off his coat as well and gestured at the door.

“Then shall we?”

With just the two of them, sneaking under the swarm of devils became significantly easier - Sparkle would signal a place to run and they would both find their own paths, darting from shadow to shadow. The further they got from the center of the island the thinner the swarm became, and by the time there was an incident it was only with an imp that was swiftly dispatched with a dagger. 

The Devil-Tzar had remained relatively untouched, the devils that had gotten too close were littered in a clear perimeter line on the end of the docks, filled with arrows and bolts. After some shouting back and forth they were allowed to approach and make their way on board, and with some poking and prodding were determined not to be devils. For a moment all seemed fine, and then Aluxe looked around and said, “Where are Fangs and Randus?”

When no one on the crew sprang forwards with an answer and Sparkle felt her heart sink.

“I thought you said…” 

Aluxe looked as worried as she did.

“They  _ looked _ fine, they should have stayed fine if they moved smart. But there’s no guarantee that’s what they did.”

“I… Okay, hold on.”

As tired as she was from everything that had happened that day, Sparkle took off down into the cabins of the ship, sliding around the corner and bursting into her room. The scroll case was against the far wall and she scattered the ritual components she had set up across the room grabbing for it. It might take her hours to get ritual to work again, the scroll was nearly instant; it burned away in a silver fire, Orem’s delicate handwriting turning to ash. Sparkle felt the channel in her head open up and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

“Randus, we’re back on the ship, what’s your status? Is Fangs with you?”

“Oh! Yeah.” Thank whatever god was still alive and looking out for them, that Randus replied quickly, “We can see the ship but we’re trapped in a room. If you cover us, we’ll go out the window. I’ll signal you.”

Sparkle let out a long breath and walked back up to deck, Aluxe was standing at the door, somehow looking even more anxious than before. She pointed behind him, back at the city. He looked in confusion, even reaching at his belt to ready his weapon - then at both of their eyes locked onto a light from a building a few blocks away. 

“That’s them, I think,” Sparkle said. Aluxe retrieved his spyglass and looked through it for a moment, then handed it over to Sparkle as he dug around for a mirror with which to signal back.

It was, in fact, Randus, and she watched the look of relief on his face as Aluxe signaled, followed by the panic of a swarm of imps following that same reflection and gathering outside the window.

“We should get to them before we make things worse.”

Aluxe nodded and handed the mirror over to another sailor.

“We’re going back for them,” He announced, “Make sure everything is ready to go as soon as we get back, this shouldn’t take long.”

He strode off the ship and Sparkle followed right after. Aluxe wasn’t trying to hide this time and neither was she - when the inevitable swarm of devils descended he swung his stave in a circular motion, arm shaking as he pulled up some invisible force. Another demon erupted from the ground - this one she  _ had _ seen before, grey skin, teeth as big as she was, and a golden collar around its neck, chain keeping it linked to the chasm. Aluxe snapped his arm in the other direction, and the chain snapped too. With a roar, the demon leapt upwards, over Little Sparkle’s head and headlong into the swarm.

“That is the distraction,” Aluxe said seriously, “We’re getting them out of there.”

It was enough cover for them to finish the sprint to the building. Randus must have been watching because when they reached the base a rope came falling down, the other end tied off to something in the room above. They were still swarmed, but only by devils too small to trick themselves into thinking they could contend with whatever it was Aluxe had summoned, and more of those still were driven away by every dagger Sparkle could toss up at them and every spell Aluxe could still muster up to cast.

Randus climbed out first, able to descend fairly quickly for no other reason than he had no fear of getting rope burn. He looked worn, and Sparkle could see all of his usual spots for healing tinctures were empty. Fangs followed shortly after, moving slower; it was unusual for her, but as she got closer to the ground the reason became clear - she sported a long deep gash over her side and a shallower one over her eyes that had matted the fur there and impaired her vision. She got close to the ground and landed with a loud  _ thump _ .

Sparkle opened her beak but Fangs gave her a low growl.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.”

They couldn’t move as quickly back towards the ship, but for the most part they didn’t need to - Aluxe’s demon had moved deeper into the city, dragging the swarm with it. It had taken some serious injury and wouldn’t last much longer, but they didn’t  _ need _ that much longer to hustle back through the streets, down the docks, up the gangplank and onto the ship. Aluxe didn’t even need to give the command, the crew immediately started pushing away, as eager to get away from the Gulag as they were. 

When it was clear that nothing troublesome was following them, Aluxe and Fangs both collapsed onto the deck of the ship. Fangs looked bad, but had clearly been at least patched up by Randus enough to keep her going. Sparkle was surprised to realize just how worn Aluxe looked. He held up one hand to look at it and seemed surprised that it was shaking. Fangs lazily turned her head to watch.

“You told me not to let you do that anymore.”

“Well you weren’t there to stop me, now were you?”

Fangs didn’t have the energy to retort and instead splayed out fully on the deck of the ship, closing her eyes. Aluxe looked like he was about to follow suit when they were all jolted back to awareness by a dark shape sailing in a clean arc through the air and landing at their feet. A large, thick grey sack hit the deck with a sound that could only be money. Aluxe was taken aback for a moment before leaning forward and opening it to reveal thousands of platinum coins.

Sparkle blinked and turned to look at where the sack had come from. The Queen’s Irreproachable Voice stood on the end of the dock - when she caught Sparkle’s eye she gave a thumbs up, though the expression on her face made it seem more like she was annoyed to be there. She didn’t say anything, but when Sparkle waved the deva nodded and walked away, back down the dock.

“Huh,” said Sparkle, “Weird.”

“Yeah, it was.” Behind her Aluxe had taken a handful of platinum and was holding it to his chest as he laid next to Fangs on the deck, “But worth it.”


	5. Chapter 5

The main problem with time being broken down was that it was unpredictable. The months of time they had saved on their trip to the far realms had been lost over what  _ should _ have been a short trip to the Gulag Magnificent. They had lost four months, somewhere along the line. 

No one seemed to recognize them as they slipped into that same halfling-sized booth in the bar. The only really major problem it seemed to have caused was an increase on the price they had to pay to keep the Devil-Tzar docked at the pier they had been using, but it was disconcerting to think that one day they might return to Waypoint to find it falling apart like the Gulag had been.

Fangs had pushed her way into sitting next to Aluxe, shoving him against the wall of the building in a way that couldn’t be comfortable but that he was handling graciously. Sparkle was next to Randus, who had grown even quieter on the return trip. Even now, at the bar, he was leaning on one hand, gazing out the window with unfocused eyes.

“Randus?” It was the third time Sparkle had said his name trying to get his attention and she wound up having to snap in front of his face before he started in surprise. He let out a small gasp in surprise and looked around like he was taking in the bar for the first time.

“Wha- What is it?”

“I was saying I handed over the stuff about fixing time over to you. Did you figure anything out?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve been looking over them.” He reached into some inner pocket of his coat and pulled out the roll of papers, folding it out on the table. He pointed at some figure he had probably added in himself after getting a hold of them, as though the grid there meant anything to them. “I guess the gist of it is that if you distributed enough power in the right places it would sort of keep time pinned down and stable. I don’t know where you’d get that amount of energy though. Or where to place it for that matter.”

Sparkle gave the math on the page a sidelong glance. As smart as Randus was he was just one guy, there had previously been an entire religion’s worth of people already doing this work.

“If I had to take a guess those spots would be where Asmodeus put his pillars,” Randus stared blankly, “I don’t know what they were but he was using some kind of magic to keep time stable. We uh- we used some magic gourds to take them down.”

Aluxe craned his neck forward to look at the papers, too, then grunted as Fangs leaned over and pushed him further into the wall.

“So we settled on fixing time then? Since when did we get all goodie-two-shoes?”

“...Since time being broken really affects how hard it is to-”

“Don’t answer that.” She cut him off. “I know why.”

Fangs swung her head around to look at little Little Sparkle and fixed her with a deadpan stare. If Aluxe was embarrassed he didn’t show it, too busy trying to squirm out of Fangs’ pin, eventually resorting to awkwardly pulling himself out over the top of the booth and over her shoulders until he half rolled to the ground on the other side.

He looked down to smooth out his coat and then back up to the table, but very specifically  _ not  _ at Sparkle.

“Well, whatever you think, we’re doing it. I’m heading back to the ship.”

Fangs tilted her head to watch him leave and then huffed. Sparkle laughed nervously.

“I guess we’re going to have to talk about that, huh?”

Fangs turned back to fix her with a stare for another moment before sprawling out as much as she was able in the new space.

“One of you is bound to, eventually.”

Sparkle watched her, then sighed and looked over to Randus. He was either ignoring the conversation or had gotten distracted again. Without prompting he shuffled the papers together into a neat stack and looked up at her with a sad smile.

“Pillars or gourds, whatever the case, I’m afraid I’m not going to be around to see the results.”

Sparkle felt herself deflate. An unbaked plan to fix time felt like it was going to be a lot less successful without Randus around.

“Already?”

He nodded, pushing the notes across the table.

“Afraid so. Good luck.”

The booth was too small and awkward for a hug so Sparkle grabbed at his hand and squeezed. Randus smiled again and then pushed himself to his feet, gave them both a small wave before turning and disappearing out the door. Fangs tracked him without moving her head, dark eyes following until they couldn’t anymore and then snapping back to Sparkle.

“He’s kinda weird, huh?”

She sounded conversational about it; by this point, Sparkle had learned that the lack of aggression was as close as Fangs got to admitting she liked something. She let out a long breath.

“Yeah. A little.”

Fangs snorted and slung back her head to finish the rest of her drink in one gulp. Sparkle did the same and the two stood up to leave at the unspoken signal. Sparkle ducked through the door and Fangs pushed through after, grunting as she shoved her shoulders through the frame. Sparkle didn’t look back at first, but she was barely three steps out before a heavy clawed hand clapped down on her shoulder.

She glanced back at Fangs, who was pointing her other hand at a man on the far side of the road, obscured by the light bouncing off of the windows by the setting sun. Sparkle squinted at him, using her own hand to block out the light.

“Oh, no way,” She said softly.

“Looks like he’s already changed,” Fangs agreed.

The man across the street was Randus, and he was different again. He somehow looked younger than he had a few moments ago, despite the fact that his hair was long enough to be pulled into a tiny ponytail. His coat and his armor looked just a little newer, his gear a little more polished. He was standing there with what was probably a map and a compass held in front of him, shoulders pulled up in that typical anxious, Randus, way.

Sparkle glanced back at Fangs and walked over to him, standing on the other side of the map until he realized someone was waiting for him and peeked over the top. He smiled when he realized who he was looking at.

“Meyaliutl!” The map came down, but he hesitated when he saw that she had frozen and his own expression fell, “Or I mean- Sparkle. Little Sparkle. I - I’m sorry, I had gotten used to the other one, I uh -” He let out a breath that puffed out his cheeks, “ - Sorry. Sparkle. What are you up to?”

Well, that had certainly caught Sparkle off guard. It took a moment for her to realize that her beak was hanging open, and she had to willfully stop her feathers from poofing out at the realization that Fangs had more likely than not heard that.

“We’re trying to fix time.” Thankfully she managed to keep her voice even. “You’re welcome to join us if you’d like.”

From behind her came a short cackle; oh yes, Fangs had  _ definitely _ heard that.

“You probably ought to, considering how many of you I’ve met so far.”

Randus’ eyes flicked up to her and he smiled again, a little more apprehensive this time.

“I would like to. I-If you don’t mind filling me in.”

Sparkle gestured for Randus to start walking in the direction of the Devil-Tzar while offering him the notes with the other. She dutifully did not turn around to look at Fangs, who she could hear quietly snickering behind them.

She started with the pillars and the pumpkins, handing him the notes after he had shoved his own map away into a pocket, then about the Bright Armada, about the Devil-Tzar they now sailed on and his own theories about its Solenoid. Then about Asmodeus, and again how he wasn’t really  _ gone _ but how he wasn’t really  _ here _ either, and how the same was true for Ket. By the time she was done, they had made their way up onto the deck of the Devil-Tzar and Aluxe had quietly re-joined them to listen. He made no comment on Randus’ reappearance besides a quizzical tilt of the head.

Randus took this all in stride, nodding thoughtfully at every twist in the story. When she finished he smiled again, earlier blunder forgotten.

“It sounds like you’ve been doing well for yourselves.” He took a moment to skim through the notes, “I... would like to see these gourds. Based on what you’ve told me they should have absorbed the power you need to get this plan working and it may just be a matter of accessing it.”

Sparkle nodded and turned to Aluxe, and they both did a very good job of looking anywhere but at each other's eyes.

“The first pillar we took down was on Great Tiger’s island. It’ll be dangerous but there’s also a friend I’d like to check in on there.”

“Not any more dangerous than the Gulag, I’d bet. I’ll start getting things organized.”

She watched him go, only stopping herself from sighing because she caught Fangs’ severe expression from the corner of her eye and really didn’t want the gnoll to lambast her again. They really would have to talk about this sooner or later.

But Fangs didn’t do that. Instead, she crossed her arms and said, “Why’d you go through all the trouble of tearing down Asmo’s stuff if you’re just gonna put it right back up?”

That  _ had  _ been troubling Sparkle as well.

“I’m hoping that since these, uh - really chaotic gourds are involved that it won't be the same. And even if it is, it should be better if only because he wasn’t the one to do it.”

Fangs gave a small nod but still appeared unconvinced.

“No, I mean what’s the point in the first place? And why pumpkins?”

Sparkle shrugged. The answer for her had always been because it was the mission of the people she was with, the story behind the pumpkins themselves being she had never heard. Fangs grunted, peered over the top of the papers in Randus’ hands, then shrugged and walked off, apparently deciding that she didn’t want to be bothered thinking about this anymore.

It wasn’t too much longer before they were ready to sail out again - the way time worked made it necessary to load up as many supplies as they could carry and they hadn’t gone through very many on their last trip. By the end of the day, they were pushing the ship off and pointing it towards Bleak Forest. Like before, the solenoid could get them close but not all the way, and there was no telling how long it would take them to go the rest of the distance.

The others wandered off, but Sparkle stayed staring out over the astral sea, watching as with a pass of a glowing ring Waypoint was wiped away, replaced with the featureless ocean. Her thoughts started to wander away from the mission at hand and back to more  _ personal _ issues. For one thing, Fangs knew her real name now. It wasn’t  _ bad _ , per se, but there was definitely an amount of uncomfortableness about the situation that she couldn’t shake. She had to assume that if Fangs knew, then Aluxe would too, and that was where the trouble started. He probably wouldn’t be able to go back to the Coil, but he  _ could _ go back to Capricorn. It was too easy for her to imagine so many convoluted strings of events - Aluxe giving that to Capricorn, who would hand it off to another double agent who would use it to further themselves in the ranks of the Coil -

She had to catch herself and force herself to stop going down that train of thought. The return Aluxe would get for violating her trust like that would be frighteningly slim, and as far as the guilds were concerned she was out of the game. There was no reason for them to focus on her now, no reason for them to keep an eye on her father. And that was a whole other worry to focus on.

As she stood around thinking, the sun set, and as she stood up a little straighter to stretch Sparkle caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Aluxe had circled back around and was making his way over.

He stopped next to her, clearly aware she had noticed him, and waited for an awkward moment, his hands held like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“Mind if I join you?” He said, and his voice was normal and even and completely contradicted the awkardness of his movements. She nodded and he took his spot at the railing next to her. There was a weighty moment of silence, then Aluxe let out a long breath.

“You thinking about something?”

She stopped herself from laughing from the frustration; he clearly didn’t know how to approach this either. What was she supposed to say?  _ I know you have feelings for me and I think I might feel the same but the idea of putting that much trust in you is still very scary but I know bringing that up will hurt your feelings? _

“Yeah, I… I’ve been thinking about what message to send my dad.” How did  _ that  _ end up being the easier topic? She could feel the tension deflate from him too when he realized that she was also avoiding the subject. 

“I would have figured you had done that a long time ago. Is it nerves or are you just getting to that point with the spell?”

“...A little of both,” she sighed, “He hasn’t heard from me in a long time and I don’t think he’s expecting to. I don’t know if he even  _ wants _ to, he’s hated my guts since he found out that I uh…  _ Worked  _ for Coil. I just don't want to complicate things.”

“That _ is _ a tough one. But this is what you’ve been working towards, right? And we don't know how long it’s been where he is.” He tilted his head. “You should send it for  _ you _ if nothing else, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to know you’re alive and doubly so to hear what you’ve really been up to.”

Sparkle nodded, she  _ knew _ that, it was just… “I guess I just need to get the courage to actually do it.”

“...You’re kidding, right? Little Sparkle, who has  _ killed gods _ , has nothing to be afraid of from her father.” He clapped her on the shoulder, and then there was a moment when his eyes went a little wide and he pulled his hand away half an inch, his voice growing softer, “I know it's different, but it sounds like there’s more to lose by not trying.”

She took a step back and Aluxe pulled his hand away entirely, it coming to rest in some pocket of his robe.

“I think the more I think about it the more I psych myself out. So I’m just going to go do it.”

Aluxe had looked anxious at first but as she explained herself it turned to understanding. He gestured to the door she would take to her cabin.

“Well then, good luck.”

She took the suggestion and moved towards the door, ducking into the hold, then into her room and only stopping once she had pulled the heavy metal door shut. If this was some trick from Aluxe to get her to like him more it was  _ working _ .

But that wasn’t what she was here for. The ritual had been set up and ready to cast for days now, and she picked up the spellbook from where it was sitting on the bed. Tucked between the cover and the front page was a note that was covered with lines of writing, most of which had been scratched out. She had been trying to figure out what she had wanted to say but the word limit had really made it difficult. The one she had come up with wasn’t  _ perfect, _ but if she was going to follow her advice it didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to be  _ sent _ .

She started the ritual, lighting the incense with a hand she had to force to be steady. The words for the spell didn't come naturally, but when she felt the channel open in her head the next words were even less so. She took a shaky breath.

“Dad, It’s Meyaliutl. If you hear this, I’m alive. Not with Coil, was a Truant. Can’t come back, but please stay safe. I love you.”

There was a long moment of silence; Sparkle held her breath. There was no guarantee that the spell had worked, no promise that he was even awake to hear it even if it had. But she wasn’t sure she had the energy in her to set up the spell and try it again, and if she didn’t do it  _ now _ …

“Meyaliutl? I-” And gods, yeah, it was her father’s voice, “If this is real, if this is really you, then I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you too.”

She should have expected to feel something, she supposed. There were too many different emotions to tell apart so she didn’t try. Instead, she left the spell finished on the floor, collapsed on the bed, and just  _ cried _ .

* * *

The Bleak Forest  _ wasn’t _ falling apart, but what that meant about Great Tiger, Sparkle had no idea. Instead, it was somehow  _ more _ overgrown, the undergrowth replaced completely with thick overlapping vines covered with leaves and what else but big orange flowers. Here and there they would grow up around the trees, not choking them but holding things up in their branches - some were too skeletonized to identify but there were a few that were still recognizable as drow. They did meet some elves, though none Sparkle recognized, who warned them that though the occupying forces were gone, the beasts that lived in the forest were as dangerous as ever.

That was enough information for them, so Aluxe, Fangs-for-Foes, Randus and Little Sparkle gathered together and started walking in the vague direction of the center of the island. The atmosphere of the forest was completely different this time around; the oppressively stagnant air had been replaced by a slight breeze and the screeching and cawing and howling of forest life.

The first day was an uneventful if strenuous hike. The vines made for an uneven but relatively safe path, and Sparkle tried to get them heading the direction of where she vaguely remembered the path she had taken last time was. When they set up camp it was nestled in the roots of a huge tree, and when Sparkle woke up the next morning there were hundreds of new orange flowers around them.

As they packed up bedrolls and tore down shelter Aluxe squatted down nearby and gently prodded one of the petals. The flower reacted by pulling itself closed into a tight bloom. He looked back at Sparkle.

“Is this going to eat us?” 

“Probably not. I think that’s just Znm making sure we stay safe.”

Aluxe nodded, poking at another flower and watching it close before standing up. He hesitated a moment before, “If you don’t mind me asking, who is Znm?”

Sparkle blinked, and then laughed.

“He’s the one who’s protecting this gourd. I’ll tell you about him.”

So as they traveled she did her best to fill them in. What she knew about Znm wasn’t much - he had joined Bahamut’s quest last, and left first. She had only really known him for a few weeks though in that time he had proven to be a very interesting person.

“You know I’d ask how you’re so sure he’s not on Lolth’s side, but -” Aluxe gestured up to where the long legs of some kind of spider were poking out of the foliage of a nearby tree, filled with arrows and strangled by vines, “- I guess he did end up  _ here. _ ”

Randus had been listening thoughtfully, but at the mention of Lolth he stopped walking for a moment and had to jog to catch up with the rest of them.

“If Lolth is tangled up in this we should be careful. Things always seem to be very complicated when she gets involved.”

The only sound for a long moment was the shuffle of walking and then -

“Hey Meyaliutl-” Randus started and stopped, stuttering, “-Er, I mean, Little Sparkle. Do you know where, exactly… they got... the... gourds…?”

He faltered when he realized the mistake he had made again and the tension in the air was suddenly very palpable. Sparkle didn’t bother to hide her sigh. 

“They never mentioned it.”

“Oh, I uh… Sorry.” Randus’ voice trailed off.

If Aluxe hadn’t known her name before, he did now. Sparkle watched him from the side of her vision as they walked; he was keeping his eyes facing straight forward and his beak tightly shut.

Now that it was out there, there was an interesting feeling. It wasn’t as though a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, but it wasn’t as though it had caused a new one to descend onto her either. She considered her own reaction as they kept moving and eventually came to the conclusion that was her reaction because  _ it didn't really matter anymore _ . If Aluxe started calling her by her real name, yes, it would be a little strange, but it no longer carried a danger behind it. He had asked why she didn’t use it, not all that long ago. Maybe he would, and Sparkle was realizing that she was fine with that.

The rest of the travel was done in relative silence between the four of them. There were the everpresent sounds of the wildlife of the Bleak Forest, but nothing ever got close enough to worry them. Sparkle swore more than once that she heard the shifting of plants, of  _ vines _ , somewhere in the distance.

The sun was setting by the time they crested the mountain and came upon a familiar clearing - it would be clear if it weren’t covered by the largest, thickest pumpkin vines on the island and flowers as large as Little Sparkle. In the center was an enormous orange pumpkin -- the four of them standing on each other’s shoulders wouldn’t be able to reach the top. It very nearly rivaled the Devil-Tzar in size, which made the dark figure at the base of the gourd difficult to spot at first.

His hair was a little longer than Sparkle remembered it, and his armor somehow even more patchworked together, but there, underneath the gourd, was one bright blue mustached drow. Znm stood waiting, arms crossed, one shoulder leaning on the enormous pumpkin. He waited for them to make their way into the shadow of the enormous vegetable before walking out to meet them. Sparkle stepped ahead of the group to greet him; when he took her hand instead of shaking it he bowed with a small flourish.  _ Oh, right _ .

She bowed her head back, willing her feathers to sit flat.

“Aluxe, Fangs, Randus. This is Znm.” The bow he gave to the three of them was a little less deep. “I take it you already knew we were coming?”

“I did. I hope it’s with good news?”

“...Well I’m sure you’ve heard that Asmodeus is gone.” He nodded. “So we’re here to see if we can somehow use the gourds to fix time again.”

Znm gestured at the pumpkin behind him, stepping to the side to allow them to get closer. Randus immediately took the cue to move up to it and started poking and prodding at it with various instruments.

“It’s been quiet for a while now, and I think it’s waiting for something but I couldn’t tell you what.”

Sparkle stepped around him and up to the gourd as well, rapping on it with one fist and hearing exactly the sort of sound one might expect from hitting a pumpkin. There was no laughing or whispering; if she didn’t know better she would have addumed it was a perfectly ordinary if giant pumpkin. On her left there was a small whine and a rapid beeping from some device Randus was waving around. He stroked his chin with one hand and kept moving around the gourd, not yet satisfied.

She turned back to look at the others. Znm was watching Randus curiously, and behind him were Fangs and Aluxe. Fangs had found a spot free of flowers to sit, already looking bored. Aluxe, despite the present company, somehow looked the most out of place of anyone - he stood away from everyone else, clearly unsure what he should be doing. His eyes flickered from Znm, to her, then to the gourd and back before he eventually gave up and sat down next to Fangs.

A moment later Randus emerged from around the far side of the gourd, holding up whatever tool he had that had been making the noise.

“I think we have something interesting here. All the energy in it has been separated into tiny parts. Probably still usable but we’ll have to either combine it or figure out a different way to distribute it.”

He mumbled quietly to himself as he pulled out the notes they had brought along, folding out a large sheet with a rough mock-up of an astral chart. There were four black dots that were the locations of the former pillars. From some hidden pocket came a compass and then he started plotting other marks in concentric circles, furiously calculating something in the margins with his other hand.

“I’m not sure how we spread this out yet but the principle is the same. If you put the energy in just the right spots…”

Aluxe, Sparkle and Znm leaned over to watch him work. When she spotted movement from the corner of her eye, Sparkle looked up just in time to see that Fangs had made it to the pumpkin and sunk her sword into it with a satisfying  _ thunk _ . Znm looked up as well, the shiver that ran up his spine visible to the rest of them.

“ _ What _ are you doing?”

Fangs was unperturbed and sliced dowards, cutting a large slice out of the side of the gourd. She wiped off the orange strings that stuck to the blade on her pants, then reached one clawed hand into the hole she had cut.

“You’re doing all this fancy math but what  _ I _ heard,” she grunted as she pulled at something inside the gourd, “Is that we’re about to start planting a bunch of pumpkins.”

Her fur up to the shoulder was caked with more stringy orange goo, but when she pulled her arm out Fangs held a clump of large, rounded yellow seeds.

“That-” Znm had been tense, but at that it fell from his shoulders and he chuckled, “That makes sense, actually.”

Fangs walked over to them and plopped the goo into Sparkle’s hands. 

“Let him do his science stuff I guess. But that’s a lot of pumpkin, so we should get to work.”

And work it was. Fangs cut a double door-sized hole into the gourd, and after some deliberation some windows for light, too. While Randus added dot after dot to his map they pulled as many seeds out as they could see - there were thousands of them which, considering the size of the gourd, didn’t actually seem to be that much. 

As they worked Sparkle couldn’t help but notice Aluxe was keeping very quiet, and was staying away from both her and Znm in a way that she was sure he didn’t mean to be conspicuous -  _ or she was just reading too much into things _ . But she could only stand the  _ squish _ of pumpkin guts for so long and ended up turning to Znm.

“So, do you feel like you have to keep staying here? Or do you think you’re free to go?”

He shook his head.

“The moment your gnoll friend here stabbed the gourd I knew I was free to go.”

“Where do you think you’re going to go? Back to the Lilancaliumus?”

Znm nodded.

“With Asmodeus gone Lolth has even fewer checks on her. She’s going to be even more dangerous than before.”

It wasn’t as though Sparkle disagreed with his assessment, but it was a little lessened by the wet slap of gourd hitting the ground.

“Are you going to need a ride somewhere, or-”

He claimed that he wouldn’t, and their conversation devolved into small talk about life in the Bleak Forest and the gritty details of Asmodeus’ sort-of death. By the time they emerged from the pumpkin, all sticky with pumpkin goo, Randus was drawing the final dots.

He held the chart up to them when they were done stuffing the seeds into their bags.

“If I have this right, then we’re still a couple thousand seeds short. The other planes will probably need some as well so-”

“Don’t get so ahead of yourself,” said Fangs, “We’ve got three gourds to go.”


	6. Chapter 6

The trip back was not  _ without _ incident, but nothing was too bad. It seemed that with the gourd cut open Znm’s power over it was minimal and he was no longer able to keep the wildlife away from them. But Fangs-for-Foes was never going to be scared by a wolf-alligator and they made short work of it between them.

As they traveled back down the mountain, Aluxe barely said a word - he didn’t seem like he was sulking, exactly, but he was normally the one most inclined to start conversations, and today he wasn’t. As a result, the day's journey was quiet, each of them doing their best to clean the goo out of their feathers and fur. They set up camp in a similar spot to last time - bedrolls set up in a gully shielded by a large tree root. Randus offered to take the first watch and so the rest of them huddled up against the dirt wall and did their best to sleep.

Sparkle was shaken awake some hours later. She squinted in the darkness to see Aluxe leaning over her, and after shaking herself away she pushed herself up.

“I thought Fangs was after you?” 

“She was supposed to be. She won't get up,” Aluxe replied in a low tone. Sparkle grunted in annoyance as she pushed herself onto her knees. It wasn’t exactly out of character for her, but Fangs had never done anything like this before. 

But she hesitated as she saw the shape of Aluxe straightening out his bedroll, only  _ just _ visible in the darkness. As she got her bearings it occurred to her that, more likely, Fangs was scheming something - and it didn’t take much for Sparkle to guess what that was. She took one more moment to rub the sleep out of her eyes and get herself to her feet.

She tried to be obvious about it, but it was so dark that Aluxe still jumped just a little when she appeared beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey Aluxe, would you step outside and talk for a second? If you don't mind.”

Her voice was barely audible over the insects and frogs of the Bleak Forest but she could see him hesitate and then nod. She let her hand drop and the two of them stepped out into the moonlight.  _ One of them was bound to talk about it eventually, might as well be on her terms _ .

“Aluxe, are you… Okay? You were kind of quiet today.”

He looked at her without turning his head from the forest and opened his beak but it took a second before he responded.

“It’s kind of you to worry but I’m fine. Honest.”

While that might have been  _ literally _ true she felt like she ought to push it.

“Well -”  _ Oh, how to put this,  _ “I might be assuming too much by saying this but if you were wondering, me and Znm have never been a thing.”

Aluxe blinked, and then he  _ laughed _ .

“We’ve been really obvious about this, haven’t we?”

“...Yeah. I think we have.” Sparkle chuckled too, a little quieter, “Kinda stupid that we’ve been avoiding it so long.”

“Mm-hm.” Aluxe took a deep breath, “The truth is that I really do think you’re kind of amazing, but I also want to be, you know, respectful. Professional. We’re still doing work out here.”

She tilted her head.

“We are, but… Aluxe, we’re not out in the Bleak Forest for a professional job, we’re out here because of me. If you’re worried about that, then you shouldn’t be.”

The feathers on Aluxe’s face puffed up and he reached up to smooth them back down.

“I had thought about that, I just-” he finally let his breath out, “How about this? The next time we’re in Waypoint, would you like to go out for drinks?”

She had found that her type, insofar as she could identify it, tended to be either cute and naive or cool and mysterious and Aluxe had at various points managed to be both. He was even in fact somehow managing to be both at the same time, right now, and that made it much easier for her to say what she did next.

“I think that would be nice.”

They stood in the sounds of the forest for a moment longer, then Sparkle mimicked her movement from before and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Now go get some rest.”

“Fine, fine.” He waved her hand away and stepped back into their shelter.

As she stood watch for the next few hours, eyes wandering back and forth over the nearby trees, Sparkle considered the fact that that conversation had done nothing to cut the tension that had been building between them, and had, if anything, only made it worse.

Fangs didn’t complain or even comment on the fact that it was Sparkle waking her up and not Aluxe. She wondered if she had already been awake, and how much she had heard, then decided it didn’t really matter before poking her in the ribs hard enough to earn a snarl. Nothing else bothered them through the night, and in the morning they finished the trip back down to the ship and out into the astral sea.

* * *

And they didn’t go to Waypoint, not right away. They visited the other gourds, and for once, that part was not so hard. They were welcomed back into Snapstab with open arms, Dallan smiling in relief to see a non-goblin and giving them armfuls of tiny blue crystalline seeds to take with them. The Sage’s Rectory and the Thousand Hectare Armory were faring much the same as the Gulag Magnificent had been - though it seemed they weren’t falling apart quite as quickly thanks possibly due to the presence of the gourds themselves. On one Albrecht was ferrying out escaping dwarves, and on the other was Seven Owls Wise saving as many books as he could. Albrecht gave them barrels full of sticky blobs - the goo that had come from his gourd dried and rolled into those, and to his surprise, they were filled with seeds. Seven Owls’ turned out to be the very embers that surrounded the island and were easy enough to gather up and stow away with his help - though they had to be stored in big metal tubs because, as it turned out, they would still burn.

The journey was only made slower by the fact that it felt like every small island they saw they would have to stop and dig a little mound to plant some seeds into - the dots on Randus’ chart we're only getting thicker the more seeds they planted.

Then, one day, without any warning at all, they stopped at an island and the only thing in his room was the chart and a note.

_ I think I misjudged things with myself but the chart should be right. Good luck out there! _

And all that while, through all that traveling, there was still the matter of her and Aluxe. The tension of knowing that there was something there, something they would be acting on in the near future, but hadn’t yet. Sparkle would alternate between excitement, dead calm, and being a nervous wreck when she was alone, but in front of Aluxe and in front of Fangs she would manage, if only just, to hold it together.

When they finally made it back to Waypoint it had been just over six months for them and seven in Waypoint. Not that large of a difference, but it was impossible to tell if their plan was working yet. The crew dispersed immediately, happy to take their shore leave, but Sparkle spent a little longer tidying up her cabin. There had been a long time to plan this; Aluxe had said he would try to find a place a little bit  _ larger _ than the halfling bar they had been cramming themselves into and she told herself that she was just giving him time to figure something out. The fact that she had butterflies in her stomach over  _ this _ felt ridiculous but she couldn’t stop them no matter what she told herself.

When she went up to the decks Aluxe was waiting for her, leaning on the railing and studying a scrap of paper. This time he noticed her when she appeared - if Sparkle had to guess it was because he had been waiting as anxiously as she had been stalling.

“Hey.”  _ Had he preened his feathers back?  _ “I got directions to what I’m told was a nice place, we should be good to get back here as long as we leave before sunrise.”

Sparkle glanced behind her at the setting sun.

“Got a big night planned?”

He chuckled, “Not as such, but I’m not opposed to getting sidetracked. Shall we?”

Aluxe gestured at the gangplank and Sparkle stepped down. He followed shortly after stepping ahead of her and pointing at a signpost. They walked as they talked, Sparkle trailing behind Aluxe just a step.

“It's two rights and two lefts from here, and we should end up half-way across the city.”

“What’s the place?”

“It’s, ah-” He paused for a second as they passed through the barrier between districts, from the port into what looked like a quiet residential neighborhood, “A street? Like a street actually called Bar Street. I figured it would be a good place to start.”

“Good a place as any I guess.” She went quiet as they took the next turn, from the quiet neighborhood into something like a park - one where a few statues of Asmodeus had been pulled down and left to grow over with moss. “It occurs to me, just now, that we probably shouldn’t go anywhere too nice, because I am still in armor.”

Aluxe looked down at his own clothes - he was still in his own armor, too, though he could probably get away with a little more considering the robe over it all.

“Yeah, I … Old habits, I guess. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of options.”

They walked through the next districts in silence. Aluxe was at such an angle that it was difficult to read him from where Sparkle was. If she wasn’t so caught up in her own head she might have called the moment  _ nice _ or  _ companionable _ but for the moment the thought that swirled around her head was:  _ is this how a real date is supposed to go? _

The so-called Bar Street was the most lively one they had seen so far - it seemed to be, as the name suggested, a street lined entirely with bars and restaurants - quite a few of them had outdoor seating that had spilled out into the road, and the air above was filled with strings of softly glowing lanterns that were strung from building to building.

The two of them slowly made their way up the street, walking around other groups, some of whom had clearly already been drinking for hours. Sparkle raised a finger and pointed at a brightly painted sign as they passed by the building.

“Is that a mermaid holding a bowl of soup?”

“It looks like it?”

Then they moved past to see the other side of the sign, which proudly proclaimed the place to be the  _ Saucy Siren, Waypoint’s best Brothel and Pasta _ .

“Oh.” said Aluxe

“I think maybe I’m not feeling adventurous enough to eat at a brothel tonight.”

“I think I agree.”

They continued up the street - the theme of mythological creatures seemed to continue, though none were quite so bold as the first one Sparkle had pointed out. When they reached what looked like the halfway point of the street Aluxe stopped.

“Anything catch your eye so far?”

“Hm. Not yet. You?”

“I spotted something that looks interesting,” he pointed one finger up the road, “Looks like we can get seafood, maybe?”

Sparkle couldn’t help but perk up a little.

“It has been a long time since I’ve had good fish.”

Aluxe nodded and grabbed her by the hand to walk towards the place. Sparkle was stunned for just a moment before letting herself get dragged along. That shouldn't have been unexpected to her, but it was, and it took until they were seated at one of the outdoor tables with drinks on the way for her to regain her composure.

There were fish here, and the halflings that owned the restaurant got around the ‘no fish in the astral sea’ problem by keeping huge tanks of fish and other sea life at the front of the building and fishing them out on order. One of the chefs appeared to be working at picking out a few with a net as someone else slid drinks onto their table.

They both watched the tank for a long moment before Aluxe turned to her.

“So, Sparkle…” Aluxe paused, for a barely perceptible moment, “Or is it okay if I call you Meyaliutl?”

He said it obviously intending to be smooth, but he was holding himself very still, trying to hide the tension he knew the question had caused. Sparkle took a deep breath but she hesitated. She had known that the question would come up, eventually, but not this soon. Yet it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it might. She had been Little Sparkle for a long time, but it had always been a code-name, an identity on top of her own. Maybe, out here, without any guilds looking over her shoulder she could shed it. Even if only for a few people.

“ ...You know, I think you can.”

She surprised herself both in how confident she was saying it and how her feathers ruffled up in embarrassment afterward. Aluxe’s did too and he laughed, reflexively bringing his hand up to smooth them back down. 

“Well uh, I’d say you can call me Aluxe, but you sort of already do.”

When she made herself let her guard down, as hard as it was, she found that talking to Aluxe was actually very easy. The food wound up being delicious but eventually, Sparkle couldn’t restrain herself from the thought that kept crossing her mind.

“Look, I’ve got to ask, are you still loyal to Capricorn? Were you ever?”

Aluxe snorted, apparently unsurprised at the question.

“I wouldn’t say loyal, no. I got in to survive and... Kept climbing the ranks I guess. Maybe somewhere in my head, I thought I could tear them down from the inside, but I never actually did much.” He leaned his head on one hand, “Wouldn’t go back though, I think I like this life too much.”

“I think I might too.”

When they finished dinner they went next door and sampled some fancy flaky pastries and then peaked their head into the  _ Saucy Siren _ to confirm that yes, there were people eating pasta while watching a blue woman dance.

The evening was a little nice and a little strange and when Aluxe, a little drunk, grabbed at her hand again she squeezed back.

* * *

They set sail again, this time with no real goal but to garden. Every now and then there was a distraction - some new job, or monster, or god would want their attention and they would deal with it, but they kept moving, around the astral sea and occasionally even into other planes. And everywhere they went, they would leave behind one seed to sprout into something new.

(Fangs caught onto them right away and acknowledged it with a roll of the eyes and a ‘bout time’)

Time never exactly became  _ stable,  _ not like it was before the treaty broke, but the seeds did make it  _ predictable _ . It was hard to tell, at first, but the more seeds they planted it became clear that things were changing. Sometimes time stretched longer, sometimes shorter, but it did so in season-like cycles, and people were quick to pick up on the change, to start recording it and using it to their advantage. There were still spots in the far realms that flowed a little differently, and in the feywild too, but, well, that was normal enough, and they didn’t have the seeds to plant there, anyhow. Eventually, Sparkle was left with only one seed left - a plain-looking yellow teardrop - and there was nowhere left to plant it.

So, she tucked it into her bag and they kept on, taking a job to hunt demons - which it turned out Fangs was adept at - then ending up in a brief fight with the Obsidian Huntress, who disappeared without a trace. They ended up back in the natural plane, on the southern continent, and before they started causing trouble for the guilds Sparkle visited her father and finally,  _ finally _ got the chance to explain.

Eventually, they wound up back in Waypoint again. Sparkle found herself perched on a retaining wall, watching Aluxe try to haggle for cheaper rates with the dockmaster. They didn’t need them, but he insisted he didn’t want to be overcharged and Fangs’ presence behind him was certainly speeding things along. They were planning, for once, to take a break, for as long as they could stand it before finding something new again. 

Sparkle let out a contented sigh. This, in a sort of way, felt like home. She was satisfied just watching them but something caught her eye. This dock wasn’t the busiest, but there were still plenty of people moving around; a faded, patched up coat was the one that caught her eye. It didn’t mean much on its own, but the two metal arms all but confirmed it. 

Sparkle leaped off her resting spot and weaved through the crowd until she was right behind him. She didn’t want to scare him too bad but, him being Randus, she wanted to make sure he noticed too. She put a hand on his shoulder.

“Excuse me!”

He didn’t jump, but slowly turned to look, blinking and then giving a small smile when he recognized her. He was probably  _ her _ Randus, or close enough that she couldn’t tell a difference.

“Hey, Sparkle. What are you up to?”

“Not a lot. We’re about to take a little break actually.” He looked back at where she pointed at Aluxe, who was  _ definitely  _ winning the argument. “You look like you could use one, too.”

“I-” he looked back at her, and then chuckled nervously, “Yeah. Maybe. There’s no- There’s nothing threatening to destroy the world right now?”

“Nothing I’m aware of.” And then, she remembered, “But there is one thing-”

She probably shouldn’t have phrased it like that, but Randus barely reacted at all, just watching with curiosity as she dug deep into her bag, people in the street passing them by and giving them strange looks. And there, at the bottom, fingers found the seed, now years old but still a bright yellow. She offered it to him and he tentatively took it.

“We planted the seeds the gourds grew around to sort of stabilize time,” she said, “But I don’t know what to do with that one. It seemed like something sort of in your wheelhouse.”

Randus examined it a little more closely and then closed it in his fist and smiled.

“I think I might have an idea. Thank you.”

He nodded, and she nodded back, and then turned back to walk the way he was going. He didn’t have to go far before he disappeared into the crowd. 

Sparkle watched him leave and shook her head, going back to her spot on the wall where Aluxe and Fangs were now looking around for her. There was more to do but that? That was out of her hands now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s that, the Other fic I cry-typed immediately after the finale, now completed. Since then there’ve been a few new things, one of them is the insistence from Rodrigo and Brian that, for Randus maybe his ending wasn’t that sad. I can sort of see it and I sort of can’t: Randus is someone who’s only happy when he’s working on something, so now he has something to work on, forever. But him having no control over it IS sad, so, though it’s not stated explicitly, this is sort of a fic about getting Randus enough of an anchor back into time that he gets to choose when he stays and goes. Maybe a warforged covered in pumpkin blossoms is kind of cool.
> 
> And of course a shout out to Styxx/TheStonePilot/Reb ... she beta'd this but also if you read this... I'm so glad we met and I'm glad we met because of crit hit.


End file.
